


Hiroshi's Summer Camp Mystery

by gnrbu



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: 12-year-olds, Detectives, Gen, Ghost Stories, Mystery, Niou might be a ghost, Summer Camp, Yagyuu would rather be playing golf, beginner tennis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 15:51:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15561210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnrbu/pseuds/gnrbu
Summary: “Go to tennis camp,” Hiroshi’s parents said. “It will be fun.”It might have been more fun without all the mysteries and shenanigans and ghosts and the fact that it was impossible for Hiroshi to be this good at tennis.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imperfekti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfekti/gifts).



> For Prince of Tennis Big Bang. Words by gnrbu, art by artoftennis.

Originally Hiroshi wanted to go to golf camp.

Golf was cool. He had been playing for a couple of years, first on weekends, taught by his father. When he’d graduated elementary school with nice grades and a guaranteed placement in the associated junior high, he’d gotten his own set of clubs as a present. Last April, as he began junior high, he’d joined the school’s golf club and quickly made new friends. He and two other boys were even talking about running for student council next year, so they could propose extending the school golf course as well as fixing all kinds of problems the students were experiencing.

All his friends from golf club signed up for a golf camp in the beginning of August. Hiroshi thought it sounded really cool. The place had a proper 18-hole course as well as a lake for swimming and kayaking, and on last night there would be a barbecue party at the campfire. Hiroshi brought home an enrolment form, hardly able to contain his excitement, not knowing he was in for another kind of surprise.

Instead of getting the go ahead he’d been expecting, he learnt that his father had been invited to speak in a medical conference in London, and his parents had decided to take the whole family on a week-long trip, overlapping the golf camp.

Truth be told, Hiroshi wasn’t disappointed at all. Golf was cool, but he played it every week. Seeing the guard change at Buckingham Palace, visiting the Tower of London and riding a river boat on Thames was much cooler.

He had a great trip, but perhaps his parents still thought he was disappointed over the golf camp, because they suggested he join a late August tennis camp instead.

Tennis was okay. Hiroshi had played it a few years ago, before he quit to spend his weekends on golf lessons instead. He didn’t mind playing tennis. It was just that none of his friends would be there, and the camp didn’t seem to have a lake or campfire either. Still, it had to be better than spending rest of summer playing tea party with his little sister, so he let his parents sign him up.

—

Tennis camp had bunk beds. Hiroshi's roommate Kaoru was still in elementary school and let his senpai choose first.

"I really don't mind taking either one," Hiroshi tried to tell him, but as Kaoru didn't show any kind of preference, he put his duffel bag on the lower bed. Kaoru didn’t say anything as he started to unpack his own bag, stacking his clothes on the left side of an imaginary divider in the cupboard. Hiroshi opened his own bag and they worked in silence for the next ten minutes, arranging and re-folding.

“Is this your first time at camp, Kaoru-kun?” Hiroshi asked when he noticed that Kaoru was done with his clothes and was now eyeing the pile of sheets on top of his bunk.

“Umm, yes.”

“I see.” It was quite obvious with the younger boy seemingly so out of his element. “Would you like me to help with your sheets? It’s easier to do them together.”

Kaoru nodded, and Hiroshi helped him pick out the futon cover and spread it over the mattress. Then he showed the younger boy how to tie the strings of the duvet cover to keep it in place.

“Have you been here before?” Kaoru asked as they climbed down to do Hiroshi’s bed.

“No, not this camp,” Hiroshi told him, “but I’ve been to other camps. I haven’t played tennis in a while.”

“I started playing in the spring. I play with my brother, but he’s too young to come to camp.”

“I see. That sounds nice. My sister is too young to do any sports with me, so I just went to a tennis school. Should we go to the courts, then? We have a lesson in thirty minutes, so we may as well get ready.”

—

Hiroshi had imagined that showing up at the courts twenty minutes before the time stated in their camp schedule would have shown enthusiasm and discipline. He had been wrong. By the time he and Kaoru made it to the front courts, they were all occupied by other campers, playing like there was nothing they’d rather be doing.

To be fair, there probably wasn’t. It was a tennis camp, after all.

“Wow,” Kaoru said quietly. “Everyone’s so good.“

“Well,” Hiroshi replied, looking at the players on the nearest court, “these people have certainly been playing a lot longer than you. But I’m sure there are other beginners, too.”

He should be a little rusty himself, but he believed he could still do the basics. He knew his serves, volleys, lobs and smashes, and he was confident that he was still on the same level with the four kids chasing the ball in front of him.

The only person he didn’t want to play was the brown-haired boy standing on the other side of the fence, watching the game on the adjacent court. He hadn’t expected to see him here.

“Excuse me, Kaoru-kun, I must go greet someone.”

Even though Hiroshi had joined the golf club instead of tennis club, he was not totally ignorant about the state of Rikkai tennis. Just a short while ago the school had held an assembly to celebrate their win at the national tournament, and the person standing by the court, Yanagi Renji, had been hailed as one of the heroes.

Hiroshi did not know him personally, nor was he expecting to make friends, but it would be awkward to run into Yanagi later at school if he didn’t introduce himself now. He walked over and cleared his throat.

“Yanagi-kun? I believe we go to same school. My name is Yagyuu Hiroshi, class 1-D.”

Yanagi and the boy standing next to him diverted their interest from the lackluster games to look at him. Yanagi bowed shortly. “Nice to meet you. I’m sorry, are you in the school club?”

“No, I’m actually a member of the golf club. I only play tennis occasionally. Are there other club members at the camp?“

“I’m here,” said the other boy. “Marui Bunta, 1-B. I’m gonna be a regular after the holidays.“

Hiroshi didn’t remember ever seeing this short, red-haired boy before, so he only expressed that it was nice to meet him.

“As far as I know, it’s just the two of us,” Yanagi concluded.

“Well, it’s always nice to see someone from Rikkai,” Hiroshi said. “Even though I don’t believe we will be attending the same lessons here.”

Hiroshi had no desire to play with Yanagi or Marui. All the regulars and even the wannabes of the tennis club were certainly above his skill level, and playing tennis like his life depended on it was not his idea of fun. He’d much rather stick with the beginners.

“Rikkaidai Fuzoku, the national champions,” said a voice behind Hiroshi, and he turned around to see a boy of their age with light brown hair, a mole below his right eye and a smirk on his lips. “Yanagi Renji. Where’s the rest of your team?”

“Not on this camp, unfortunately,” Yanagi replied. “And you are?”

The smirk fell from the boy’s lips. “Disappointed. I was told this camp was the place to meet and beat the best. Last year it was attended by everyone who was anyone in junior tennis. But this year Rikkai only sent one player and that wonderkid of Seigaku is not here either.”

“That’s right,” Yanagi said, “though I don’t recall seeing you here last year.”

“Atobe Keigo,” the boy finally introduced himself. “I only moved to Japan a few months ago. I’m the new captain of Hyoutei.”

The name Hyoutei didn’t mean anything to Hiroshi, but Marui let out a small, impressed sound. Regardless of the prestigiousness of his school, Atobe had to be a pretty good player to become captain in his first year.

“I see,” Yanagi said. “I must have missed you at the nationals. I’m looking forward to playing you.”

“The pleasure will be all mine.”

“This camp has really gone down the drain,” someone else said. Hiroshi looked up and saw two more boys approach them. “Didn’t anyone bring their doubles partners? Too bad, we’re just gonna have to beat you one by one.”

“Senri-kun, Kippei-kun,” Yanagi greeted them. “I see that you’re still here.“

“No one told us Kunimitsu, Seiichi and Genichirou were gonna bail,” said the one with big blond hair.

“We wouldn’t have crossed half the country if we’d known it was only you,” said the one with big black hair. “You don’t even have a doubles partner anymore.”

“I can play with him,” Marui jumped in. “Bring it on!”

“Who are you people anyway?” Atobe asked. “Did you play in the nationals?”

“Senri-kun and Kippei-kun play for Shishigaku,” Yanagi introduced the newcomers, “and Marui-kun is aiming to become a Rikkai regular. And there’s Yagyuu-kun…”

“Nice to meet you all,” Hiroshi bowed shortly without adding anything to the introduction. He didn’t believe any of these people were interested in him.

Atobe proved him right by letting out an exasperated sigh. “I guess this will have to do. Whoever wants to challenge me first can meet me at this court in three hours.”

“Oh, this is gonna be fun,” Marui whispered to Hiroshi. “Everybody looks so strong.”

Hiroshi thought that everybody, except perhaps Yanagi, only seemed arrogant, not strong, but perhaps Marui had more information than he did. Either way, their strength wasn’t his concern. He was only here to have a good time, not to watch the national tournament replay.  
He was happy to see some adults step onto the court and announce they would begin the first lesson. He bid goodbye to the national level players and went to get sorted in a less advanced group.

—

“I heard that some kids are gonna decide tonight who’s the best tennis player,” Kaoru said as he and Hiroshi headed towards the common room after lessons, showers and dinner.

“Is that so?” Hiroshi asked, though he could guess whom Kaoru was talking about. “Well, I know I’m not in the running. By the way, do you know which movie we’ll be watching tonight?”

“It said Howl’s Moving Castle on camp schedule. I’ve already seen it.”

“So have I. Nevertheless, it’s a nice movie. Where would you like to sit?”

“Can we sit there? Those guys were in my training group today.”

Kaoru’s training group didn’t mind them sitting with them, and Hiroshi was happy to make friends with others who didn’t take tennis all that seriously. There was Takeshi, who had brought a huge bag of sweets, and Wakashi, who actually thought a martial arts style called enbu was more fun than tennis. Hearing it said out loud and seeing the reactions it elicited, Hiroshi realised how bad it actually sounded, and decided not to compare golf to tennis publicly, no matter what he thought privately.

There was also Jirou, who practised in Hiroshi’s training group and fell asleep as soon as the movie started playing and was still snoring when the credits had rolled. The others decided that they couldn’t let him stay the night in the common room, and shook him until he opened his eyes and let them help him back to his room. Neither of the beds was made, so Hiroshi and Kaoru decided to deposit him in the lower bunk. Jirou could sort things out with his roommate later.

Hiroshi hadn’t seen Yanagi, Marui, Atobe, Kippei or Senri in the common room, so the games must still be going. He hoped they wouldn’t get in trouble staying out this late, but he didn’t say anything to Kaoru, because he didn’t want the younger boy to worry about other people’s business.

Instead, Hiroshi brushed his teeth and went to bed precisely at curfew. As far as first days went, it hadn’t been too bad. Most kids at the camp had seemed nice enough. It would get more fun later as they got to know each other. At least that’s what Hiroshi hoped for.

—

Both Kaoru and Hiroshi were early risers, but only one of them was excited about morning practice. Hiroshi was certain that he would be more enthusiastic about the 8 am lesson if he didn’t know that it would be followed by more tennis at 2 pm and 5 pm. Three lessons a day felt excessive. At the golf camp, his friends only had one lesson and two hours of free play time a day, and then they would go swimming or kayaking or play boardgames or croquet.

But he wasn’t going to complain. It was barely more than a week of his life, and he still enjoyed tennis a little. The instructor was even cutting them some slack, considering the theme of the lesson was forehand shots, a topic none of them had any trouble with.

“So everybody pick a partner and start with a simple underhand serve,” she told them after they’d run a couple laps. “I want to see a nice rally with long, straight shots aimed as close to the baseline as you can. Hiroshi-kun, where’s your partner?”

Hiroshi looked around. He had been too slow and everyone else had already paired up. How embarrassing.

“Are we missing someone? There are supposed to be eight of you, but I see only seven,” the instructor counted.

“Jirou-kun doesn’t seem to be here,” Hiroshi realised. “I can go look for him, if you want. I know where his room is.”

“If you don’t mind, Hiroshi-kun,” the instructor agreed. “But if you don’t find him, come back and you can play with someone else.”

Despite his earlier thoughts, Hiroshi didn’t intend to skip the lesson. He would just get Jirou and play with him. He should have noticed earlier that Jirou was missing. They had watched a movie together just last night! Hopefully the boy wasn’t getting sick — after all, he had been very tired yesterday.

Finding Jirou turned out to be easy. He was still in his room, lacing up his sneakers, hair unbrushed and wearing pajama pants.

“I’m late, aren’t I?” he said sheepishly when Hiroshi came in. “I didn’t set alarm last night.”

“Oh. Sorry, that might be my fault. You went to bed as soon as we got here last night, and we didn’t even think about setting an alarm.“

“Don’t mind. Is the teacher mad?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m kinda hungry,” said Jirou. “Can we stop by cafeteria?”

“I don’t think they’re serving breakfast anymore. Sorry.”

“Whatever. Let’s go play.”

“Don’t you want to change your pants?”

Jirou shrugged, grabbed his racket and headed for the door. “It’s fine.”

“Didn’t your roommate wake you up when he left? That’s very inconsiderate of him.” Hiroshi asked as they started towards the courts.

“I guess I don’t have a roommate. He didn’t arrive yesterday. I asked about it, and they told me he might be late because he’s from some island, but he never got here. Maybe his boat sunk or something.“

Jirou fished a ball from his pocket and started bouncing it on the racket.

“Do you think we finally get to play today? I wanna play with Atobe.”

“He’s not even in our training group,” Hiroshi reminded.

“But he’s so cool!”

“I believe we should be rallying,” Hiroshi sidestepped, not wanting to discuss Atobe’s coolness. Hero worship was not his thing. He picked up the racket he’d left by the court fence. “We can share a court with those two.”

The player on Jirou’s side of the net caught his ball instead of hitting it back and did a double-take at Jirou’s attire.

“What is this, a pajama party?”

Jirou grinned. “That’s a great idea! Hey Hiroshi, let’s have a party tonight! We can have it in my room.”

“Sure,” Hiroshi agreed. A pajama party sounded fun. “Are you ready? The first serve is yours.”

“Party? Are we invited, too?” the other boy asked.

Jirou was already throwing the ball up, but he still responded without missing a beat. “Sure, you can come too.”

Hiroshi had to chase after the ball, almost running into the fourth boy on the court. He must have missed some part of the conversation, because when Jirou hit the ball back to his court, the red-head was exclaiming that he was Sengoku Kiyosumi from Yamabuki and that Jirou wasn’t the only one who could hit an overhead serve.

Hiroshi realised that he probably should have told Jirou they were only supposed to do underhands today. Jirou wasn’t supposed to make him run around the court either. He slowed down and let the ball hit the back fence.

“This is supposed to be just a rally practice”, he said as he picked up the ball and walked up to net. “Sorry if I didn’t make it clear. The teacher said-“

“I like how you were doing it,” Kiyosumi interrupted him. “We should play a game. Your friend can rally with Kentarou.”

“What’s wrong with rallying?” asked Kentarou, but Kiyosumi ignored him.

The only reason Hiroshi didn’t take up the offer was that he didn’t want Jirou to get in trouble for not following instructions.

“Let’s just keep rallying,” he suggested. “Jirou-kun? I can take the next serve.”

He retreated back to baseline and pulled his racket back, exaggerating the motion of an underhand serve. He was about to let the ball drop  when he heard the teacher call everyone to gather.

The practice wasn’t over yet, and Hiroshi doubted she would call everyone to stop just to scold Jirou. Maybe it was time to change practice partners. Rallying with Kentarou was actually quite an appealing idea. He looked like a nice, reliable guy.

Instead, the instructor showed them a speedometer and started talking about different kinds of shots. Kiyosumi was overjoyed when he was asked to demonstrate the shots the teacher was talking about, and the speedometer proved his shots to be fast. Probably faster than Jirou’s, just like he’d said.

Jirou almost fell asleep while they watched Kiyosumi hit the ball. He wasn’t doing it to spite Kiyosumi, but Hiroshi knew it still looked bad, so he tried to give his new friend a shake every now and then to not give Kiyosumi any reasons to hate him.

“Are you perhaps not interested in fast shots?” Hiroshi asked.

Jirou rubbed his eyes. “Atobe is faster.”

“Probably,” Hiroshi admitted. Everyone in the top group should be able to hit faster balls than them.

“It’s still a good shot,” the instructor interrupted them. Hiroshi hadn’t even noticed she’d been listening. “It’s true that Keigo-kun clocked some very good numbers this morning, but it’s not a reason for you not to do your best. It only takes some practice.”

“Of course,” Hiroshi said quickly, embarrassed to be caught talking behind someone’s back. He would really need to show their teacher he was serious about learning.

Kiyosumi might have heard them, too, because he glared at them when it was Hiroshi and Jirou’s turn to get their shots clocked.

“Sorry,” Hiroshi said. He didn’t even know what he was apologising for, he just felt like he had to.

He fed a few easy balls to Jirou and didn’t even try to return his quick shots. Jirou was good. Definitely better than him. Perhaps he could have even made it in the top group.

He knew he wouldn’t do as good, but he had to try. Trying to remember everything the teacher had just told them, he pulled back his racket and positioned his body, ready for Jirou’s shot. It came as an easy underhand, and Hiroshi reacted.

It must have been all the golf. He used his hips to bring force to the shot, over-rotating, but luckily the ball only curved a little before it hit the ground a couple feet behind the baseline. He frowned. He needed to lose the rotation.

“Wow,” said Jirou. “That was fast.”

“Excuse me?” It certainly wasn’t. The speed was nowhere near his golf ball. He knew very well he couldn’t hit as hard as he would on a green, because in tennis the ball needed to stay within court lines.

“Do it again!”

Jirou got ready to serve him a new ball, and Hiroshi took his position again. He swang, and the ball rolled off his racket, landing only an inch closer to the court.

“That’s amazing, Hiroshi-kun!” the instructor waved the speedometer. “You’ve got the best speed out of everyone this morning. All you need is a little topspin.”

Surely that couldn’t be true. Hadn’t she just said that the first group had had their practice clocked before them?

“But it was out,” Kiyosumi pointed out, quite correctly.

“We’ll work on that,” the instructor promised. “There’s plenty of time for all of you to improve your accuracy.”

Hiroshi and Jirou walked out of the court and the next pair took their place.

“You may be even faster than Atobe,” Jirou marvelled.

“I’m not planning on playing Atobe-kun,” Hiroshi reminded. “And Kiyosumi-kun is right. It wasn’t even in.”

“I’m not saying it’s not a cool shot,” Kiyosumi said, shrugging. “I wanna get as quick as you. Just, you know, get it in too.”

Perhaps hitting fast shots was how one made friends at a tennis camp. That might have been the nicest thing Kiyosumi had said to him all morning.

“Then let’s keep practising.”

\--

Kaoru appeared by the court as the practice came to close. “Hi. How was your practice?”

“Good, thank you. How about yours, Kaoru-kun?”

“He has the fastest shot of all camp!” Jirou chimed in. “It was great! I couldn’t even touch it!”

Had Jirou been trying to catch up to his shot? Hiroshi wished he’d tried harder and returned it, so no one would have seen it go out.

“Mine was okay,” Kaoru said. “Do you wanna… do something now?”

“It’s not quite lunchtime yet…”

“I know!” Jirou said. “Let’s go find Atobe! I wanna invite him to my party!”

“What party?”

“Jirou-kun wants to have a pajama party tonight.”

“Oh,” Kaoru said, taking in Jirou’s attire. “Okay.”

“You can come, too,” Jirou promised. “It’s tonight! I just need to invite everyone. Atobe is probably…”

“I think he went to the sports field,” Kaoru said.

A sports field without tennis nets didn’t sound like a place Atobe would hang out at, but Jirou didn’t seem to find anything weird in the premise. It wasn’t until Kaoru took them to the field until Hiroshi understood why Atobe had chosen it: the field was built in a pit surrounded by concrete steps that probably doubled as spectator stands. Behind the furthest stands, on top of a small hill, was a tennis court. Senri, the boy with the big black hair, was in the process of scaling the fence. His friend Kippei was already inside.

“Atobe!” Jirou shouted and took to run.

Hiroshi and Kaoru climbed the steps at a slower pace, not as excited to meet Atobe as Jirou was.

“I thought their second practice would begin soon,” Hiroshi said to Kaoru. “Aren’t they on an earlier schedule than us so they can have more courts on hand?”

“Who cares about schedule?” Kippei said through the fence. “It’s not like they can teach us anything. You only get strong by playing.”

Atobe scoffed. “That’s such an oversimplification.”

“Then why are you here?” Senri laughed.

“Obviously beating you two is a better way to use my time than a hundred swings. I just didn’t realise it would involve breaking and entering.”

“This wall is new,” Senri said. “It wasn’t here last year.”

“Didn’t they put it up on the last day of the camp last year?“ Kippei reminisced.

“Did they? Oh right, that makes sense. Must be because of that kid. Like we would be so stupid as to fall down the steps and die,“ Senri laughed.

“Did someone fall down the steps and die?” Jirou asked, eyes wide in shock.

“Yeah. It was just last year,” Kippei nodded. “We used to come here all the time and play. I wasn’t here when it happened, but I heard he went chasing after a ball and totally forgot he was on a hill.”

“Yeah, it was a huge mess with like blood and broken limbs all over the field. He could barely play with a ball machine after that.”

“So he didn’t die,” Hiroshi pointed out the discrepancy.

“Oh, it was his ghost,” Kippei quipped without missing a beat. “Still out there every night with his mangled body, looking for a playing partner who sucks as much as he does.”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Kaoru said quietly to Hiroshi. “They’re just lying, right?”

“Of course. Ghosts are just stories.”

“How charming. Well, if ghosts are the only thing we need to worry about, I may as well come play with you. Jirou, boost me over this thing,” Atobe decided.

—

All day Jirou kept inviting people to his party, and by dinner time Hiroshi was beginning to fear it might be shut down by the coaches as soon as it began. Roommate or no roommate, Jirou’s room could only accommodate so many people. He brought up the issue when he ran into Jirou at the dorm.

“It’s not that many,” Jirou laughed. One of the snack bags he was carrying fell down. Hiroshi picked it up and placed it on top of the pile.

“You’ve bought enough candy for the whole camp, though.”

“This stuff? Not really, this is all from Atobe. I guess he has more experience in party planning than me…”

“Oh.” Hiroshi would have thought Atobe had too much important tennis stuff to do to throw parties. “So you and Atobe-kun are friends from school?”

“Yeah,” Jirou nodded happily. “He’s so cool! Did you know he just moved from England this spring? And then he beat every senpai in the tennis club, and now he’s the king of Hyoutei and we would’ve won nationals if they’d let us first-years play with him. But now we’re doing special training, and next year will be ours.”

“That’s nice,” Hiroshi said. He didn’t care about tennis tournaments, and Jirou’s tale of a 12-year-old boy, raised overseas, beating every Japanese junior high student he met on the court, rang just as true as the ghost story Kippei had told them. He picked up three bags of assorted dried seafood Jirou had just dropped. “Would you like some help taking these to your room?”

A couple hours later Jirou’s room was full of people, but not as bad as Hiroshi had anticipated. It turned out Jirou had barely unpacked his stuff, and two beds and a mostly empty floor provided enough sitting space. Hiroshi ended up sitting between Kaoru and Atobe, both of whom seemed slightly out of their element and were the only people aside Jirou that were actually wearing pajamas.

“Did you… have a good time playing with Kippei-kun and Senri-kun today?” Hiroshi asked. It was the only question he could think of.

“They weren’t completely unbearable,” Atobe replied. Hiroshi wished he would try a little harder to be likeable. “But after I’d beaten them both, I found that someone had taken the laces out of all my sneakers. They must have thought they’d be the top dogs of this camp.”

“That’s… not very nice of them.”

“Not everyone is,” Atobe shrugged. “Anyway, Jirou helped me re-string them before afternoon practice, so it was just a minor annoyance. It’s not like they’re the first ones to use underhand tactics. I’m more disappointed in the level of this camp.”

“Excuse us, then,” Hiroshi said pointedly. He and Kaoru had signed up to learn tennis, not to be slighted by Atobe.

Atobe waved him off. “Last year this camp was attended by not only everyone who played for Rikkai team in this year’s nationals but also Tezuka Kunimitsu. Now there are people in my training group who haven’t even made their school teams! I should have taken the Hyoutei team to my summer house instead.“

“I’m sorry to hear that. Kaoru-kun, have you had a good time so far?”

“We’re not really playing games or anything,” Kaoru said so quietly Atobe had to lean closer to hear him. Hiroshi was surprised Atobe was even interested in a 6th grader’s camp experience. “Most of the time we’re just trying to hit the ball, and it’s not like anyone’s very good, so…“

“Everyone has to start somewhere,” Hiroshi reminded him. “Isn’t that right, Atobe-kun?”

“I suppose so,” Atobe said. He must have started young. “Speaking of which, how long have you been playing? Jirou told me you have the fastest shot on this camp, but I know you didn’t play in nationals.”

“He’s exaggerating,” Hiroshi deflected. “I took tennis lessons for a few years, but I’ve never played competitively. My skills are certainly not on par with Rikkai team. I’m actually a member of the golf club.”

Atobe tapped a finger on his forehead and gave Hiroshi a weird look. “But you still told that Marui kid you’d become a regular before him.”

“You must be mistaken. I never said such a thing.” Hiroshi was not quite sure how close Marui was to becoming a regular at Rikkai, but the golf club didn’t even have a team. “Besides, golf tournaments are always individual competitions, so it doesn’t even make sense.”

“He wasn’t talking about golf.”

“Marui-kun told you that I said that?” That was weird. He had thought Marui was a little too hung up on becoming a Rikkai regular, but not as crazy as to make up rivalries where there were none.

Or maybe Atobe was just trying to stir trouble within Rikkai to help his own team.

“Nevermind,” Hiroshi said. “I’ll be sure to clear it up with Marui-kun.”

It might be nothing, but as he would still be seeing Marui at school once the camp was over, he should make sure there were no misunderstandings between them. After a few more minutes of Atobe commenting on Marui’s tennis skills, Hiroshi excused himself to talk to Jirou. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that as soon as he left the conversation, Kaoru got up as well and went to sit with Hiyoshi, leaving Atobe alone. He wasn’t entirely sorry about it.

“Jirou-kun?” Hiroshi tapped his friend’s shoulder. “Would you mind if I brought one more guest? There’s a boy from my school who might like to join us.”

“Sure,” Jirou said. He was sitting on the bottom bunk with Kiyosumi and Kentarou, and his eyes were already drooping. “Whatever you say. It sounds nice.”

“You don’t think I’m boring, do you?” Kentarou asked out of the blue.

“Of course not,” Hiroshi said. He hadn’t actually talked to Kentarou before, but he seemed like a nice guy.

“Well, I know it wasn’t me who tired him out,” Kiyosumi pointed out. “He was fine until you started talking about your goldfish.”

Hiroshi took it as his cue to leave.

He started to look for Marui in the common room, where the scheduled camp programme should have been going on. Apparently board games weren’t popular amongst tennis players, because the room was deserted except for a few younger players and, surprisingly, the rowdy pair from Kyuushuu immersed in a game of shougi.

He had to see the board himself to believe it. Kippei made a move that, as far as Hiroshi could tell, seemed legit. Senri rubbed his chin, considering his own move.

“Did you come to witness my win?” Kippei asked.

“Umm… Not really. I just wanted to see what you were playing.”

“Shougi, obviously,” Senri said. “Well, if you’re gonna watch, I’m gonna have to bring out the big guns and win this game.”

“You’re losing. Badly,” Kippei pointed out.

“Yeah, but it’s just because I was gonna let you win. I could have checkmated you five moves ago.”

“What?”

“Dude, your sister plays better than you. All I need to do is promote this rook and I’ll win in two turns.”

Kippei looked at the board. “Huh.”

“What about you?” Senri gave Hiroshi a measuring look. “Do you know the rules? Are you better than him?”

“I know how to play, but I’m actually looking for someone. Maybe some other time.”

“Sure, let me know when you have time. Kippei, it’s your turn.”

“There’s no way you can win in two moves,” Kippei said, staring at the board.

“Yeah, that’s what you said to Atobe today, and we both know how that turned out.”

Kippei scowled at Senri.

“So, you had a good time playing today?” Hiroshi asked. “I’m happy no one fell down and died. You might want to take it a little easier with Atobe-kun, though. He didn’t like the shoes thing very much.”

“What shoes thing?” Senri asked.

Hiroshi had thought Senri and Kippei were the type that boasted about their misdemeanours, not the type to pull off perfectly innocent faces and insist they had nothing to do with it. However, Senri’s question seemed honest and Kippei wasn’t giving anything away, either.

“Nevermind. Anyway, have you seen Marui-kun after practice? I need to talk to him.“

“He hasn’t been here, and Renji isn’t playing tonight, so probably in his room”, Kippei guessed. “It’s right next to ours.“

“It’s a bummer about Renji. He’s barely played anyone, and his doubles partner isn’t even here. Atobe is fine, but the real reason we came here was to get better at doubles. We got way better games last year.”

“Do you think Seiichi told everyone else not to come here again?” Kippei scratched his head and made his move on the shougi board. Senri moved his piece immediately.

“No, because if he did that, Renji wouldn’t be here. And we just saw Seiichi at nationals and he didn’t say anything about the camp. He was just like,” Senri pitched his voice high, “I won the nationals! Renji, did you see me win the nationals? Genichirou, you can smile now because I won the nationals!”

“Well, I’m just going to see Marui-kun, then. Thank you for your help,” Hiroshi chimed in. He didn’t really know Yukimura outside of seeing him in school assemblies, so he didn’t have anything to bring to the conversation. Besides, he really wanted to find Marui tonight.

With the help of the directions Kippei managed to give him between bouts of laughter, it took Hiroshi no time to find the room. Marui was clearly not expecting to see him when he opened the door.

“Yagyuu-kun? What’s up?”

“Jirou-kun is having a party down the hall. I was wondering if you wanted to come.”

“Sure,” Marui shrugged. “I don’t have anything else to do. No one is playing tonight. Atobe-kun already skipped practice to play with Chitose-kun and Tachibana-kun, and now they’re resting. Is it like a real party? What’s the occasion?”

“Jirou-kun just felt like he wanted to throw a party. Atobe-kun provided a ton of snacks, too.”

“Oh, are there sweets? I really want a cookie right now. I brought like two packages, but my stupid roomie ate all of them! I gave him permission to have like one, and this morning they were all gone. He’s such a pig. I hope he gets fat.”

“I don’t remember if Jirou-kun has any, but I actually have some Country Ma’ams is my room, if you’d like to have them,” Hiroshi offered. Being nice could go a long way. “We can pick them up on the way.”

Unlike Marui’s roommate, Kaoru was way too nice to eat the snacks Hiroshi’s mom had packed for him. What he wasn’t expecting Kaoru to do was to be in their half-dark room, looking through his tennis bag in the corner of the room.

“Kaoru-kun?” Hiroshi asked, switching the lights on. “I wasn’t expecting you to leave the party this soon. We’re just about to go back. Did you… not have fun in there?”

As far as Hiroshi could tell, Kaoru had been having a good time with his friends just a few moments ago. Surely the party couldn’t have ended this soon.

“I need to go practise,” Kaoru said.

Hiroshi could see that from the fact that he had put on his cap and was taking out his racket, but he didn’t quite understand why. Kaoru would have three more lessons tomorrow, and there was a party going on in the dormitory.

“Did something happen?”

“I did very bad this afternoon,” Kaoru said quietly.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope you’re not too hard on yourself, though. You’ve only been playing for a couple of months, right? I’m sure your instructors and friends understand that. I’m also happy to help if there’s anything I can do…”

“Would you play with me?”

“Well.. Now?”

“Why not,” said Marui, who shouldn’t have been listening to Hiroshi and Kaoru’s private conversation in the first place. “We can go to the party afterwards. I can show you a trick or two. Let me just get my racket. And maybe take the cookies, too?”

“I guess we can do that,” Hiroshi agreed. He had left his own tennis bag by the door, so he hoisted it up and got the cookie package from his side of their shared cupboard.

“I need to change my pants,” Kaoru said. “You can go ahead.”

“We’ll get Marui-kun’s equipment and wait for you at the court. It’s already dark, so let’s take the closest one if it’s free,” Hiroshi decided. He closed the door to give Kaoru some privacy before addressing Marui. “I really meant for us to go to the party. I thought it was quite fun.”

“It’s okay,” Marui said. “Let’s just go get my racket. Parties are fun, but so is tennis. And your roommate was pretty down. Is he still in elementary school? I guess we need to take care of the little guys. We’re senpai, after all.”

Hiroshi smiled as they returned to Marui’s room and then headed out to the courts. He hadn’t seen this side of Marui before, but he was glad it had come out.

“Absolutely. Now that we don’t get to be senpai at school, we need to take this chance.“

“We’ll be senpai next year,” Marui reminded him.

“I guess so. Have you had fun here?“

“Sure. We have pretty good players in our group. At least when they come to lessons. Yanagi-kun is giving me lots of pointers, so I’m glad I came here. It’s not like he has time to do that at the club.“

“I’m happy to hear that. I’m sure it will help you become a regular after summer. I’ve also had a good time. I’m still planning to return to the golf club after summer vacation, though. Tennis is enjoyable, but it’s just not my thing. Some people seem to think that I’m aiming to be a Rikkai regular, but I only came here to have fun.”

“Right,” Marui said. Hiroshi couldn’t tell if he believed him or not. “I don’t get what’s fun about golf, but whatever. You need to be super dedicated to become a regular at Rikkai.”

“Certainly. I can come and cheer you on in your next tournament.”

“Yeah, you can do that,” Marui laughed. “Come on, the court is free. Let’s rally while we wait for him. What was your roommate’s name again?”

“Kaoru,” Hiroshi said and took his position. “I take it you’re going to serve.”

It didn’t feel like Marui was spreading rumours about Hiroshi. He was starting to believe Atobe had made the whole thing up. Maybe the shoelaces story, too. Come to think about it, Atobe didn’t seem to have many friends. Jirou might be the only person on the camp who liked him. Maybe it was a cry for attention.

Hiroshi had to drop the thought to chase Marui’s serve. The redhead certainly rallied like he meant it. The level of the first group was certainly high, if this was an easy rally for Marui. Hiroshi tried to get to the ball and hit it back as precisely as he could, but Marui had come up to the net and was making him run, barely moving himself.

At least Marui was enjoying himself. Hiroshi turned to look if Kaoru had come out already, and missed an incredibly fast ball hitting the opposite sideline. It was like he and Marui weren’t even playing the same game, and Marui wasn’t even a regular yet.

“Boys!” someone shouted at them. When Hiroshi turned around, he saw Marui’s group’s coach approaching. “It’s curfew! Time to come in!”

“Already?” Marui grumbled, but he went to put his racket away and fetch the ball.

Hiroshi checked his watch. “We played for half an hour.”

“What happened to your roommate?”

\--

His roommate was in line for the communal bathroom, about to go brush his teeth. He was chatting with Takeshi and Hiyoshi.

“Kaoru-kun? We were wondering where you went.”

“I was just at the party.”

“I see.” Hiroshi really didn’t. They had agreed to meet at the court. The kid needed a lecture on keeping his appointments, and he would get one as soon as they went back to their room. Hiroshi was only holding back because he didn’t want to chew Kaoru out in front of his new friends. “I didn’t realise. How was the party, then?”

“The coaches just shut it down,” Takeshi said. “They said it’s curfew.”

“I see. Was it fun though?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you have fun?” Kaoru asked him.

“Sure.” The party had been pretty fun, and he had really meant to go back with Marui. He would have, if they hadn’t been sent to the court waiting for a no-show. “I and Marui-kun played a little and had a good chat. We were-“

He was interrupted by a scream in the hallway. All heads in the bathroom line turned to see where it came from. Takeshi was the first one to abandon his place and dash down to see what was happening. Hiroshi, who wasn’t even in the line, followed him.

Rounding the corner, they found Kentarou laughing in a doorway. The odd sight was explained when they looked into the room and saw Kiyosumi soaked in water. There was an empty bucket on the floor.

“Oh, you got me good,” Kiyosumi said. He pinched the hem of his wet T-shirt like he was trying to decide what to do about it. He forced a smile. “You got me real good. I never saw it coming.”

“I’m so glad you went first,” Kentarou managed to get out between giggles.

“I bet you set me up,” Kiyosumi said, but he didn’t sound too angry about it. “Who else was in? Jirou? You?”

He pointed at Hiroshi.

“What?”

“I see, I see. You went out to set it up. Didn’t know you had it in you. Very nice.”

Hiroshi shook his head. “No, I had nothing to do with it. I was just playing with Marui-kun.”

Now that Kiyosumi pointed it out, he realised his explanation seemed pretty suspicious. These people didn’t know him well enough to understand Hiroshi never pulled pranks like this. It could have even been dangerous if the bucket had hit Kiyosumi’s head. It wasn’t a risk Hiroshi would have taken.

“Yeah, right,” said Kiyosumi, and Hiroshi knew he couldn’t win this one. Not unless the real perpetrator came out.

\--

Hiroshi’s mood didn’t improve when he woke up to Kaoru rummaging through his tennis bag.

“Is it time for practice yet?”

Kaoru stopped what he was doing and turned to face Hiroshi.

“No, but I thought I’d go early…”

“If you really need to do extra practice, you could at least be more quiet.”

“Sorry. I just can’t find my cap. I wore it yesterday.“

“Yes, you did. Perhaps you left it at Jirou-kun’s? You’ve been rather forgetful lately. Try to take better care of your belongings and commitments.”

Hiroshi got up and went to brush his teeth and grab breakfast. By the time he got back to the room, Kaoru had emptied his side of the closet, but the hat was still missing.

It didn’t seem that big of a deal to Hiroshi. Shielding your eyes from the sun was nice, but surely Kaoru didn’t need a hat to get through one practice.

He walked Kaoru to his practice to help him look for the hat outside, not because he wanted to see his roommate squirm after the disappearance he had pulled last night.

Well, maybe he did enjoy it a little. At least until he saw Kaoru’s group gather around their instructor and was reminded how young the beginners really were. The group’s teacher was a motherly woman who started the lesson by doing a headcount and making sure that everyone had brought their rackets with them. She proceeded to lecture the 5th and 6th graders about sunscreen and, just like Kaoru had feared, chewed him out for not covering his head.

Hiroshi went to his own practice feeling bad for his roommate. Kaoru was, after all, just a little kid.

—

“Yagyuu-kun!”

Hiroshi was surprised to hear his name being called in the cafeteria. Kiyosumi pretended like he didn’t mind last night’s prank, but he’d given Hiroshi a cold shoulder all morning, and the rest of the group seemed just as inclined to believe his guiltiness.

To his disappointment, his caller was not one of his peers but Marui-kun. He was pointing at the seat opposite to him, and seeing that he seemed to be the only one who wanted to be in Hiroshi’s company, he didn’t have a choice but to take the offered seat.

“Hello, Marui-kun.”

“Hi. Thanks for the cookies. They were pretty good. I ate them all last night before my stupid roomie got to them.”

“I’m glad.”

“Yeah. I told him he couldn’t have any, and he pretended he didn’t know what I was talking about. Stupid liar.”

To be completely honest, Hiroshi didn’t care about Marui’s cookie-stealing roommate at all. He decided to change the topic.

“Did you hear about Kiyosumi-kun being pranked last night? Someone put a bucket of water on his door.”

“Oh? Did he fall for it?”

“Yes, he got rather wet.”

Marui laughed. “Awesome!”

“Well, he seems to think I was the one to do it. He saw me leave Jirou-kun’s party, and then I didn’t come back inside until curfew. I admit it seems a little suspicious. I don’t know what to do to prove my innocence.“

“That sucks,” Marui said. “Look, it’s Yanagi-kun. Yanagi-kun! Come sit with us!”

Yanagi did not seem very happy to sit with them, but he set down his tray on Marui’s right side.

“Hello.”

“What’s up?” Marui asked. “Did you get another one?”

Yanagi nodded.

“Another one?” Hiroshi repeated.

Marui received a subtle glare before Yanagi answered. “Yes. Unfortunately, someone is leaving me some unpleasant messages.“

“I’m sorry to hear that.” The camp appeared to have problems with bullying. “Have you talked to the camp counsellors?”

Yanagi shook his head. “There’s nothing they can do. Not until I find out who the messages are from.”

“Do you have any ideas?” Marui wanted to know.

“At this point I only know it’s not the person they’re signed as. It’s not even his handwriting. It turned out that my earlier suspicions were also unfound. No one from Seigaku is attending the camp this year.”

“Oh!” Marui perked up. “No! You’ll never guess what! Tezuka is here!”

Yanagi frowned. “He is not. Trust me, I would know.”

“No, I saw him! It was just last night! I left my water bottle on the court and I went out to get it and there he was.“

“Marui-kun, have you even met Kunimitsu-kun?”

“I saw him in the nationals. It was him, I swear.“

“I’m sure we would know if he was on the camp,” Hiroshi chimed in. He had never seen this Tezuka, but he knew Yanagi, Atobe, Kippei and Senri would have noticed him being there. “Perhaps it was someone else you saw. What does Tezuka-kun look like?”

“He’s taller than me, pretty thin, and he has glasses. His hair is brown, kinda light, and a bit longer than mine.“

Hiroshi shook his head. “I’m sorry, Marui-kun, but that could have been anyone. Even I fit that description, and Yanagi-kun here is only missing a pair of glasses.“

“But I’m sure it was him!”

“And I’m sure that Kunimitsu-kun is not here,” Yanagi insisted. “Even if he were, he wouldn’t have sent me those messages. Thank you, but I will take care of this myself.”

“Well, I hope you find your answers,” Hiroshi said to end the conversation. “Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help.”

Instead of answering him, Yanagi was looking at something behind Hiroshi. He turned around and saw Senri carrying two trays of food while Kippei limped behind him.

“Is everything alright?” Yanagi asked them when they passed their table.

“Just a bruise,” Kippei brushed him off. “I just need to ice my knee and I’ll be good to play in the afternoon. Don’t worry, our doubles match is still on tonight. You’d better watch out, redhead. You’re gonna get it good.”

“I’m glad it’s nothing serious,“ Hiroshi said. “That fence looked a bit sharp. Did you cut yourself climbing?”

Senri shook his head. “No, he just fell in the shower. Someone had soaped the floor.“

\--

Just to be sure, Hiroshi checked all floors and doors before walking through, but there were no more incidents. He played it safe in the afternoon practice session and didn’t try to hit any fancy shots. Jirou played a proper game with Kiyosumi, and no one paid Hiroshi any attention, which suited him just fine. They had chicken curry for dinner and the evening activity was announced to be karaoke.

He got to sing one ZARD song and put in another request only to have it cancelled when the sixth-graders decided to have a sing-off to end all sing-offs, which was promptly overtaken by Atobe, who, Hiroshi had to admit, had a great voice. By the time Kiyosumi wrestled the mic to himself to take over Jirou’s song that had been put in the queue so long ago Jirou had already fallen asleep, it was clear he would not be singing any more songs.

“Jirou-kun?” he shook his friend. “Do you want to go to sleep?”

Jirou nodded sleepily and held up a hand so Hiroshi could pull him up. With Jirou’s arm over his shoulders, they made their way to Jirou’s room. Hiroshi deposited him in the bed, asked if he could take one of the leftover snack bags still littering the floor and bid goodnight as he closed the door behind him.

He still had an hour before curfew, so instead of turning in, he got a book from his room and set out for a moment of quiet and solitude. The furthest corridor of the second floor had a nice, wide windowsill, perfect for reading. Hiroshi stretched out his legs, opened the bag of potato chips and entered a world of imagination.

He got three chapters in when the garden light turned on. He checked his watch. Only ten minutes until curfew. He could maybe get through one more chapter before he was sent to bed.

Something moving on the backyard caught his eye, and he looked down on the back court. Most of it was hidden by a storage shed, but he could make out someone swinging a racket. He should have guessed the sing off would turn into a tennis off sooner rather than later.

The figure turned around to pick up a missed ball and Hiroshi did a double-take.

It looked just like him.

He blinked, and the figure on the court turned his back again. It must have been the white shorts and dark polo shirt. Most kids on the camp preferred to play in T-shirts or even tank tops. Add some brown hair and a pair of glasses, and the resemblance couldn’t be dismissed.

Was it Tezuka?

The boy on the court certainly fit Marui’s description. He didn’t really look like anyone else on the camp, except for maybe Hiroshi himself.

It was just that Yanagi had been so certain that Tezuka was not here. And from what Hiroshi had gathered, if Tezuka as much as set a foot on the campground, half a dozen campers would be queuing up for a game with him. Atobe certainly wouldn’t be singing brit pop in the rec room if there was a chance to play with one of the best players in the junior high circuit.

There was only one way to find out. Hiroshi bookmarked his page, gathered his stuff and set out to meet the unusually well-dressed player.

By the time he made it to the backyard, the court was empty except for a lone ball machine, and an instructor was yelling for him to come back inside before he broke the curfew.

—

The next morning Kaoru went through his stuff very quietly. Hiroshi might have been too hard on him yesterday.

“Are you still missing something?”

“My cap. Did you see it?”

“Sorry, no. Are you sure you didn’t leave it in the showers after practice?“

“I don’t know. A lot of stuff is missing. Like Wakashi-kun’s tennis balls and Akutagawa-senpai’s extra pillow.”

“Is that so? Do you think someone’s stealing things? Maybe it’s just another prank.”

“It’s a prank if it gets found in the end, right? Otherwise it’s just stealing.”

“Right,” Hiroshi agreed.

“But, umm…” Kaoru hesitated. “Takeshi-kun said you took them.”

“What?” That was preposterous. Hiroshi was not a thief nor a prankster. He never skipped class and always turned in his homework. How could anyone even think of something like that? “Of course I didn’t. Why would he say that?”

“I don’t know.” Kaoru shrugged. “He’s kinda idiot sometimes. He laughed at me when Harada-san made me wear a scarf at tennis lesson.”

Hiroshi didn’t know what to make of it. He didn’t even remember talking to Takeshi aside from hellos. The sixth-grader shouldn’t have any reason to hate him.

“And…” Kaoru continued, “he also said that you were out pranking people last night. Because you weren’t at karaoke.”

“I was just reading a book last night.” That might have been a bad move. If any pranks happened today, he didn’t have an alibi. He had been all alone, hadn’t even seen anyone except for the player on the back court, but telling Kaoru about that wouldn’t make any difference. He hadn’t even decided if he should tell Marui and Yanagi. Perhaps it would be better for him to avoid rumours of any kind, at least until they found out what happened to Kaoru’s cap and all the other things that appeared to be missing.

“Okay,” Kaoru said, but Hiroshi couldn’t be sure if he believed him or not.

—

Morning practice didn’t do anything to lighten his mood. The instructor had them pair up to play doubles, and it turned out Hiroshi was the only one who hadn’t done it before. The tennis school he’d attended when he was younger didn’t offer doubles training, and he’d never thought he’d need it. Now he was seriously out of his depth, and the worst part was that he was dragging Jirou down with him.

Kiyosumi said he didn’t like doubles, but somehow his shots always went to places Hiroshi had trouble getting to. Kentarou wasn’t fancy, but every time Hiroshi hit the ball, he was waiting for it at the baseline, ready to return it. Jirou was jumping back and forth trying to get all the balls before Hiroshi could miss them, and the teacher kept shouting at him to cover the other side of the court.

It was the worst practice he’d ever had.

He apologised to Jirou afterwards. His friend waved it off, but didn’t seem happy. Why wouldn’t he be mad? He was probably the best player in their group. If he’d played with Kiyosumi instead of him, they may have even been able to take down some pair from the first group.

He was supposed to go to lunch afterwards, but he didn’t feel like sitting with Jirou for another half an hour, so he just told the others he had something to do and excused himself. Kiyosumi eyed him suspiciously, but he was in too bad a mood to do anything about it.

He went to the back court more for the sake of being alone than investigation. He didn’t expect the guy from last night to have left a calling card behind.

All the groups had already finished their morning session, and the court was empty. If this was a crime scene investigation show, he might have found fingerprints, an unusual footprint, perhaps some fibre stuck in the net. As it was, he had little to go with. The only difference he could see was that the ball machine from last night was no longer there. It had probably been put back in a storage shed.

There were two sheds by the court. He went to open the door of the closest one and was happy to see the ball machine there. At least it wasn’t stolen.

He hadn’t been able to see if the guy from last night had a playing partner or if he’d been playing with the machine. Hiroshi didn’t know anything about ball machines. Looking at it gave him no information about last night, and neither did the spare nets and ball baskets lining up the shed walls.

The other storage shed had a padlock on the door, so he had to go back to finding footprints. There were plenty of them all around the court, and there was no way of telling which might have belonged to the person he was looking for.

Hiroshi knew he would have to use his head. The guy on the court was gone in the time it took him to get down from second floor. Had he headed to the front door, Hiroshi would have run into him. Circling the building would have taken him to the kitchen door, but he would’ve had to walk right past the common room window. Hiroshi certainly would have heard about it if Tezuka, or someone that looked like him, had crashed the karaoke night.

No, the guy must have either run to the woods or hid behind the sheds. Both of those options meant that he hadn’t wanted to be caught.

Hiroshi entered the court, checked the time on his watch and dashed behind the shed. Thirty-one seconds, because the court fence was too high to jump over and the only door was on the opposite side of the sheds. It was not enough time to escape unseen when anyone could have come around the corner at any time.

He wasn’t sure what to think anymore. The storage sheds were perfect for hiding behind, but there were too many questions unanswered. He didn’t even care about finding this Tezuka person outside of proving Marui right or wrong.

He would have missed the loose board on the shed wall if it didn’t give in when he leaned on it.

Taking care not to break anything, he was able to shift the board enough to push his head in. When the first board was out of the way, the next one could also be pushed aside enough to make room for him to climb through.

It was not the shed with the ball machine. This one had the same shelves on the wall and the same collection of rarely used or broken tennis equipment and the same barred window up high letting in some light, but it didn’t have a ball machine.

Instead, there was a mattress on the floor, a pile of candy wrappers and a small collection of personal items. A book was lying open by a pillow, he could count three shirts of different colours and styles, and a game of solitaire had been laid out on the floor, unfinished.

It was more than he’d ever expected to find, and he had no idea what to make of it. Obviously someone had been here, even slept here.

Hiroshi didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but all signs pointed to it being someone who wasn’t sleeping in the dorms. He still didn’t know why, but there was now evidence to back Marui’s Tezuka hypothesis. He needed to show this place to his schoolmates.

As soon as the tennis lessons finished. He had already missed lunch and was late for his second training session.

—

Not being in the same training group with Marui and Yanagi, Hiroshi didn’t manage to catch them until dinner. Not having had any lunch, he was starving, and by the time he had loaded up a double serving of everything, Yanagi was sitting with Atobe, and Marui was nowhere to be seen, completely ruining his chance to have a quiet discussion with them.

He sat down anyway, and Jirou followed him shortly after. They had played more doubles in the afternoon, but Hiroshi had managed to switch partners. As a result, everyone had played worse than in the morning, because it turned out doubles had a lot to do with knowing your partner.

“It’s not like doubles is very hard,” was Atobe’s unhelpful advice. “It’s only three people you have to see through instead of one. Although I guess it helps if you have a decent partner.”

“I think the problem is me rather than my partners,” Hiroshi pointed out.

Atobe shrugged and changed the subject, confirming that he didn’t care about Hiroshi’s struggles.

“So, Yanagi, when are we going to have our game, hmm? You’re the only one I haven’t played yet.”

“There are fifteen people on this camp you haven’t played yet,” Yanagi corrected him.

“You know what I meant. I’m not going to play with any kids who don’t know how to hold their rackets. Are you fishing for compliments? Fine. You are the only one worth beating at this camp.“

Yanagi set down his chopsticks and gulped down the last of his milk.

“Perhaps we get a chance to play one of these days. Unlike many of you, I don’t have a habit of sneaking out after curfew for unofficial games.”

Atobe was probably the only one in the present company who did that, but Hiroshi didn’t want to call him out.

“You shouldn’t go out after curfew, with the ghost and all,” Jirou said.

“That was just a story,” Hiroshi reminded him. Yanagi looked like he had no idea what they were talking about, so he had to explain. “Kippei-kun and Senri-kun told us a story about a player dying on this camp last year and his ghost haunting the place. Obviously they made it up.”

“They do like to be dramatic,” Yanagi agreed. “I’ll have a chat with them. I don’t want them twisting the truth like that.”

“My castle in England had plenty of ghosts,“ Atobe said, “but I’ve yet to meet one that could keep Yukimura and Sanada from coming to this camp and make you stay in every night when you should be playing.”

“That is true. You have not met this ghost.”

Hiroshi didn’t know if he was more put out by Yanagi jumping on the ghost story or Atobe’s claim that he owned a castle in England. This whole discussion was so ridiculous there was no way he could bring up a mysterious person camping out in a storage shed, so he just finished his dinner in silence and excused himself as soon as he was done.

He headed out to the sheds without even checking what tonight’s leisure activity was. He got his book from his room, just in case he had to wait for a long time for the mystery boy, and headed to the back court. Kaoru’s friends Takeshi and Wakashi were playing, and he greeted them quickly as he rounded the court and disappeared behind the shed.

Hiroshi knew that if he didn’t catch the guy tonight, there would be more stories tomorrow about his suspicious behaviour.

His book wasn’t half as interesting as it had been yesterday. It was hard to concentrate on a fictional mystery when he was in the middle of a real one. The sixth graders’ game didn’t appear to be going very well either. Takeshi kept messing up his serves, and Wakashi’s shots rarely made it over the net. It was very ambitious of the two to attempt to play a real game.

Just like he’d suspected, nothing happened until the sixth graders gave up and vacated the court. The sun set and soon it was too dark to keep reading, and nothing had happened for at least two hours. Hiroshi was ready to give up and try again tomorrow when someone approached him.

It was literally the last person he had expected to meet.

It certainly wasn’t the famous Tezuka.

It was himself.

The other boy must have been expecting him, because he didn’t seem surprised at all. He nodded at Hiroshi, who still couldn’t but stare. He had the same white shorts and dark blue polo shirt he had been wearing last night. His hair was brown and neatly cut and his glasses could have been Hiroshi’s spare pair.

“Here you go,” the other Hiroshi said, holding something out for him, and Hiroshi took it automatically. It was a tennis racket. “Let’s play.”

The boy turned around and started walking away, and Hiroshi took off after him. He couldn’t let this guy get away now that he’d found him, even if it had turned out nothing like he’d expected.

To his surprise, the boy didn’t take him to the back court but headed out to the woods. There weren’t any lights to guide them, but the boy seemed familiar with the winding footpath. Hiroshi followed him with less grace, stubbing a toe on a protruding tree root and walking in small, low-hanging tree branches. It was starting to feel more and more like a bad idea. How were they supposed to play a game of tennis in the middle of a forest? When had he agreed to a game in the first place?

He was just about to demand to know where they were going when they came out of the woods and he saw a hill and a tennis court in front of them. Of course. It was the closed court by the sports field, they had just taken a detour and come out at the other side.

“Why here?” Hiroshi asked.

“Where else?”

Hiroshi’s pick would have been any of the courts they were allowed to be on, close to the dorm with other people around.

That must be what the other boy wanted to avoid. He didn’t want to be seen by anyone else, going so far as to disguise himself as Hiroshi to keep his identity hidden.

Hiroshi wasn’t stupid. He didn’t believe for a second that this boy looked like him by accident. He kept a close eye on mystery boy as he, instead of climbing the fence, took out a key and opened the padlock, allowing them to walk in through the door. He also knew how to turn on the court lights, giving Hiroshi a better look at his face.

It looked eerily like his, but when he really tried, he could see glimpses of something else beneath. It just wasn’t enough to tell him who it really was. The layer of forged expressions and - was that make-up? - was very good.

It couldn’t be a girl, right? This was an all-boys camp.

Whoever it was, he was taking a serving position and Hiroshi could no longer make out all the details of his face. He looked at the racket in his hand, basic model, no signs of whom it belonged to, and realised he was expected to get ready to receive.

The boy pushed up his glasses, like Hiroshi did when the sun would hit his eyes over the rim, except there was no sunlight at night, threw the ball in the air without a bounce and slammed it through the court.

It looked like Hiroshi’s serve, but the ball didn’t behave like in Hiroshi’s serve. Instead of drifting over the net and falling near the midpoint of the service box, it came down fast and landed near the line of the service box, barely in. Hiroshi only got one step away from his receiving position when the ball was already gone.

He let the ball roll out of the court and turned to look at the other boy serve again.  
It was still Hiroshi’s serve. It wasn’t Kiyosumi’s power serve or one of Jirou’s really weird ones that had the ball bouncing unpredictably. It was his serve, just a little better, a little more accurate, a little more consistent, and it was starting to piss him off.

He finally lunged for the fourth serve and managed to hit it back over the net. The other boy was waiting for it right behind the net and dropped it back on Hiroshi’s side with the wrist flick he’d been practising in class just a couple days before.

Hiroshi was quite used to losing by now. His new friends on the camp took tennis pretty seriously and had many advantages over a casual player like him. But losing to someone who was only using moves that Hiroshi could do was a different matter.

“It’s my turn to serve,” he said. Figuring out who this person was could wait a little longer.

—

Hiroshi didn’t get much sleep that night. Kaoru shook him awake, telling him that his alarm had gone off a few minutes ago. If the search for the hat continued, Hiroshi didn’t notice it, too busy getting dressed and grabbing breakfast before his morning lesson when all he really wanted to do was go back to bed. Jirou was just as tired, and they spent most of the session on lazy rallies and long water breaks.

He didn’t feel fully functional until after lunch. He couldn’t remember how long he’d played last night, just that he’d got very tired and the other boy had turned off the lights and left through the woods. He’d been alone and chosen to go back to the dorms through the sports field instead of getting lost in the forest.

He never managed to find out who the other boy was. They’d barely spoken, and when he had, he’d sounded quite a bit like Hiroshi, only commenting on the game and never speaking about himself.

However, Hiroshi had found out something important: the other boy had seen him play a lot. It meant that he had to be one of the camp participants. Surely they would have noticed an outsider watching their every practice. Chances were it was someone from his own training group. After all, they saw him practise every day.

He paid extra attention to his group in the first afternoon session. Jirou was probably the one who knew him best. He was also tired enough that he could have been playing tennis past midnight. However, Jirou was a little too short, not to mention Hiroshi didn’t believe him to be able to keep a straight face all night.

Kiyosumi might have done it to get back for the prank he still believed Hiroshi to have pulled on him.

There was also Kentarou, whom Hiroshi barely knew at all. His tennis style wasn’t that different from Hiroshi’s, so he probably could have pulled off last night’s disguise. Wasn’t it always the quiet ones?

The rest of the group he wasn’t that familiar with. Surely they wouldn’t care enough about him to pull this kind of elaborate prank on him? He spent most of the lesson watching others practise their serves, giving Jirou a chance to take a nap on grass, but honestly, they all seemed to be having enough trouble with their own serves for Hiroshi to believe any of them could copy and perfect his.

If it wasn’t Kentarou or Kiyosumi, it was likely that the mystery boy played in the first group. He had certainly beat Hiroshi easily enough.

It was a possibility worth investigating. After his lesson ended, Hiroshi made his way to the other side of the yard, where practice was still going on.

He had never seen the first group play before. He knew Yanagi had a huge part in Rikkai winning this year’s nationals. Jirou was always telling him how great Atobe was, and the Kyuushuu pair could talk about their wins longer than Hiroshi cared to listen, but he’d never felt the need to see them first-hand.

He might have been the only one. Almost all of the beginner’s group and half of his own group was standing by the fence, heads turning as the ball flew back and forth. Every now and then they would gasp at something happening on the courts. Hiroshi edged closer to take a look over Takeshi and Wakashi’s heads, and saw that the game everyone was watching was between Atobe and Senri. The other court was occupied by Marui.

He also saw Kippei and Yanagi draining their water bottles and decided they would make better company than the star-struck sixth-graders.

“Hello. Have you finished your games?”

“Yagyuu-kun,” Yanagi acknowledged him. “Yes, for now. I’m sure everyone will take a break soon. Who are you looking for?”

“I just thought I’d take a look at what’s happening here.” He tried to be discrete and pretended to watch the game while he sneaked glances at the boys’ faces, trying to see if anything looked familiar.

He didn’t think so. He wasn’t sure how much could be accomplished with make-up, but Yanagi’s eyes looked nothing like his, and Kippei had way too much hair. Senri was too tall to pass as him, and Marui was noticeably shorter.

As far as Hiroshi could tell, Atobe was playing a great game. Senri was not giving him any easy points, but he was steadily widening the point gap.

Atobe had to be good enough to copy his play style. Hiroshi wouldn’t even be surprised if Atobe liked to prank and humiliate people. Had this happened to Yanagi, Hiroshi would have been the first to point his finger to Atobe, but it made no sense for Atobe to do it to him. Hiroshi was, at best, a mediocre player, whose existence Atobe barely acknowledged on a good day. He wouldn’t waste his time on Hiroshi when he could be playing national-level players. Hanging out in a tool shed didn’t sound like him, either.

He was running short on options, though. There was only one more person in the first group, the light-haired boy playing Marui. Hiroshi didn’t remember his name, if he’d ever heard it.

“Yanagi-kun, who is the person playing Marui-kun? I don’t think we’ve met.”

“That’s Kuranosuke,” Kippei replied before Yanagi could. “We met him this year in the Kansai tournament. He’s okay. He never does anything interesting, but I guess he has potential or something.“

“There’s a lot Marui-kun could learn from him, if he wasn’t so set on going up to net at every chance,” said Yanagi. “Look how Shiraishi-kun keeps to the center of the court. Even though Marui-kun has improved his angling, it’s very hard for him to create a shot he couldn’t reach.”

Hiroshi looked. He didn’t quite understand what Yanagi was talking about, but there was something about Shiraishi’s play that might have been familiar. As Kippei had said, his play showed little signs of personality, and Hiroshi could easily imagine him adapting another style. He had the right build, and with darker hair, he probably could have passed as Hiroshi.

The most noticeable difference between them was that Shiraishi played with his left hand. The boy from last night had definitely used his right hand. Still, it was a little suspicious that Hiroshi hadn’t met him before, so Hiroshi didn’t cross him over on his mental list.

It seemed like both pairs on the courts were planning to go through all six games, but Hiroshi didn’t think he would learn anything new from watching them play. There was one more place that might hold more clues: the shed. If he was correct and the stuff there belonged to his doppelgänger, he might be able to find some personal items that could fill some of the gaps.

Going through someone else’s stuff was terribly impolite, and Hiroshi changed his mind four times between the front courts and the shed. By the time he pushed the loose boards away, he had set himself several rules: he wouldn’t take anything and he wouldn’t look at anything too personal. He would leave everything as it was, so the boy wouldn’t even know he’d been there - Shiraishi, Atobe, Kiyosumi and Kentarou were all occupied at the front courts, so he was most likely safe.

He never got to follow his ethical rules, because the shed was empty. The walls were still lined with shelves full of old tennis equipment, but there was no mattress on the floor, no clothes, no books, no games. He looked everywhere, but all he could find was a lonely candy wrapper hiding under a shelf.

He checked the other shed just to be sure, but it was just as empty.

He was too late. Now that Hiroshi had found his hiding place, the boy must have moved back to the dorms, and there was no way Hiroshi could search everyone’s room to find out who possessed that one book he’d seen and a polo shirt that looked like his. It was too little to go on with.

He wished he had told someone. Marui would have been glad to help him find the person he’d thought was Tezuka. Kippei and Senri would have loved to join a ghost hunt - if they hadn’t orchestrated all of this in the first place. Even the sixth-graders could have had a fun time spying on people.

Hiroshi had been selfish. He’d wanted to solve the mystery on his own, and it had cost him all his clues. He wasn’t any closer to finding out the boy’s identity, and with all the physical proof gone, no one would believe his story. He had messed up.

Still mad at himself, he went to his last practice session late, had a mediocre dinner and painted some half-hearted watercolour animals with Kaoru and his friends. It was a lame activity even by the sixth-graders’ standards, but it was better than sitting behind a shed waiting for someone who probably had no intentions of showing up ever again. Why would he? He’d already had his fun.

The knock on the window as soon as Hiroshi got into his dorm room took him by surprise. The last thing he’d been expecting were those too familiar eyes behind a pair of glasses.

“Come on,” he could hear the boy say through the window. “Let’s go.”

Him slipping into shadows and disappearing as soon as he’d delivered the invitation was no surprise at all. Hiroshi wondered what happened if anyone was on the yard. Would someone see him sneaking along the wall, avoiding windows? Could anyone even tell it wasn’t really Hiroshi? He would have preferred Tezuka rumours over people saying Hiroshi was up to some mischief.

Hiroshi only had a minute or two before Kaoru would be back from the bathroom. He had to get out before his roommate could ask him any questions. He would have to sneak out unseen, and he would definitely break curfew, again. No one had said anything about last night, so he assumed Kaoru hadn’t told anyone how late he’d come in. He could only hope Kaoru didn’t tell on him tonight, either.

The window was heavy and creaked loudly when he opened it, but it was big enough for a boy and a tennis racket to get through. The other guy hadn’t told him where he was going, but Hiroshi had a pretty good guess.

He turned out to be right. The walk up the hill also gave him plenty of time to reflect on how crazy he was for doing this. He really should have told someone. If not the instructors, at least Marui and Yanagi. The three of them could have figured this guy out in no time.

The lights of the hill court were already lit and the gate was open. Hiroshi stepped inside and took a good look at the other boy.

He still looked mostly like Hiroshi. He didn’t look anything like Kiyosumi or Kentarou or even Atobe. He went through every player in both his group and the first one, but Shiraishi was the only one he couldn’t dismiss, and that might have been just because he’d never taken a close look at his face. The boy was holding his racket in his right hand, though.

“Watch me,” the boy said, and Hiroshi jolted back. He must have been staring at his face for an uncomfortably long time.

“Sorry.”

“Please go to receive.”

“Oh. Right.”

Hiroshi took his place on the other side of the net, and the boy served. This time Hiroshi knew where the ball was headed and returned it almost easily. The boy let it hit the back fence and picked up the ball as it rolled back to him.

“Two serves each,” he said.

“Is this an exercise in serves?”

“Of course.”

“Right. Go on, then.”

Hiroshi watched the boy serve again. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be watching. Was there a hint hidden somewhere in these serves? What kind of clues could a serve hold? He might have maybe recognised Jirou and Kiyosumi by their serves, but this guy was neither Jirou nor Kiyosumi.

It had become clear to him today that he wasn’t a very good detective. He didn’t even know what it meant that the boy hadn’t disappeared but called him out for another game. Why was he giving Hiroshi a new chance to figure him out? Wasn’t he afraid that Hiroshi could jump the net, tear out his wig - no one on the whole camp had hair like that, Hiroshi had checked today - and ruin his little game.

“That’s not it,” the boy said, shaking his head. “You need to watch closer.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“I’ll do it one more time,” the boy said and pulled another tennis ball out of his pocket.

“Are you talking about the serve?”

“Yes, of course.”

Hiroshi was not interested in the serve. Last night it had irritated him, but now that he’d got over the shock of seeing someone play like him, just better, he was more interested in how the guy had made his face look so similar to his. Serves were just part of a sport that he wasn’t even that interested in.

“Fine. Show me the serve again,” he decided. Maybe it would help him figure out the rest of this.

—

Kiyosumi was not a fan of the serve. He said as much when he missed two consecutive ones without even touching the ball.

Maybe Hiroshi’s serve was a little better now. He even had some control over which side of service box it landed on. But it was just a little tweak in his technique. Two weird nights of tennis didn’t make him Roger Federer, just tired.

Kiyosumi’s tactic must have relied entirely on Hiroshi messing up his serves, because Hiroshi ended up winning the game 45-30. They switched opponents and he went on to lose the next game to Jirou, just like he’d expected.

He won his next two games against boys who were on his level, which was nice but not surprising. He was just about to begin his game with Kentarou when Kiyosumi jumped in.

“Ken-chan, go play with Yuuji-kun instead. I want a rematch with Hiroshi-kun.“

Hiroshi didn’t want a rematch. He wanted to play one game with everyone in the group, just like the teacher had told them to, and catch a quick nap before lunch. He had no interest in this one-sided rivalry.

“Fine,” he said anyway. Kentarou was already gone and Kiyosumi’s smile was so innocent. He would make this his last game of the morning and go to sleep as soon as it finished. “Do you want the first serve?”

Kiyosumi took the first serve, and Hiroshi returned the ball just like he’d practised all week. Maybe his wrist control was just a little better, because the ball hit the court far enough that Kiyosumi couldn’t make it. Maybe his shots got just a little faster when he put his whole body behind them, trying to imitate that guy who pretended to be him.

Lack of sleep was not the only thing hurting his head right now.

“Nice,” said Kiyosumi as Hiroshi was about to get back to serving position. He was already heading to the next court. The game must have ended without Hiroshi noticing.

He was pretty sure he’d won. It was time to shower and nap.

The shower room was still empty, everyone else still busy playing extra games now that the instructor was finally letting them play real games, if not entire matches. Hiroshi put down his tennis bag and was just about to take off his shirt when a reflection in a mirror caught his eye.

First he thought he was just very tired, but then he took a step closer and his image in the mirror didn’t.

“Really?” he asked the mirror. The image mouthed the words back with a short delay. “You’re not that good. No one is that good.”

He touched the glass, the image doing its best to imitate him. The mirror hanging on the wall was not big enough that someone could have fit between it and the wall. There had to be another room behind it.

The girls’ locker room, Hiroshi realised. No one was using it on the boys’ camp.

“Why are you hiding behind a mirror? Don’t you have anything better to do?”

He got no reaction from the doppelgänger, just his own annoyed look.

“Senpai?”

Hiroshi turned around to see Kaoru entering the locker room. The beginners’ lesson must have ended. He pressed his back against the mirror, trying to cover it.

“Kaoru-kun.”

Kaoru looked at him weirdly.

“What’s wrong with the mirror?”

“Nothing.”

“But it’s black.”

Hiroshi looked over his shoulder and saw himself. His actual reflection, not another boy standing behind the glass.

“It looks normal to me.”

Kaoru looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

“It looked like someone’s soul was trapped in there. And then it went black and now it’s back again.”

He could have told Kaoru someone was just pulling a prank on him, but then he would have had to explain who that guy was. He would have had to tell Kaoru what he’d been doing the past two nights, and then Kaoru would have probably wanted to sneak into the girls’ unused locker room to catch the boy behind the mirror. All Hiroshi really wanted to do was go to sleep. Solving the mystery would have to wait.

“Mirrors don’t trap souls. That’s just another scary story. You don’t really think you saw a ghost in the locker room, do you? We don’t need more silly rumours flying around, Kaoru-kun.”

He would explain Kaoru everything later when he’d got some sleep and revealed the mystery boy’s identity.

—

Hiroshi’s plan to get into the girls’ locker room was very simple: after the afternoon tennis lesson, he asked the instructor if they could also use the girls’ showers, as the boys’ showers could get crowded and there were no girls on the camp anyway. She gave them permission to use any shower they liked, and Hiroshi was free to snoop around without looking like a weirdo.

“Is there something interesting in the lockers?” Jirou asked. He’d been the only one to come to the girls’ showers with Hiroshi.

“Not really,” Hiroshi shook his head. It was just that the lockers were pushed against the wall that separated them from the boys’ locker room. The mirror had to be behind them, but they were probably too heavy to push out of the way. “I just thought there was something behind them.“

“What?” Jirou came to look with him.

“I’m not sure,” Hiroshi said, stretching the truth a little. “It was a rumour I heard.”  
Jirou kneeled down to look under the bench, and then crawled under the lockers. “Eww, it’s dusty. And I just showered!”

“You don’t have to…”

“Oh, there is something here.”

Hiroshi heard shuffling. He peered under the locker and only saw Jirou’s ankles. He had stood up. That was weird.

He crawled under the locker. When he reached Jirou, he could see that there was enough space for a small person to fit behind the locker and the wall. The side of the locker touched the wall, so the only way to reach this space was to go under or over the lockers.

“It’s for ventilation,” he realised, pointing at small holes in the back of the lockers.

“So there’s nothing here after all?” Jirou asked. “Do you think our lockers are the same?”

“Probably.” It made a great place to hide for someone who didn’t want to be seen. “But I was looking for this.”

He tapped a square on the wall. It was slightly protruding and the size of the mirror. He felt around the edges and found that he could, with some difficulty, pull it out and lift it off the wall. Only a piece of see-through plastic remained between them and the boys’ locker room.

“Look, it’s Atobe-kun!”

Atobe’s eyebrows rose all the way to his hairline when he saw part of the wall had just become a window, through which Jirou and Hiroshi were now looking at him. He pulled his shirt on before demanding explanation.

“We’ll just put the mirror back and come meet you in a minute”, Hiroshi said before Jirou could launch into an explanation of his own. “Jirou-kun, can you help me lift this?”

They put the mirror back on, crawled under the locker and took really quick showers to get rid of the dust and dirt. Atobe was waiting for them outside the locker rooms. Hiroshi was glad he was alone.

“As you saw, the mirror in the locker room can be taken off,” he said. It was best to stick close to the truth. “I’m not sure how many people know about it, but to avoid any more locker room pranks, it might be best not to tell the others.”

“That’s probably for the best,“ Atobe agreed. “I’d hate to see Tachibana and Chitose staring at me every time I get out of the shower. They would think it’s funny.”

“Do you think girls use it to spy on boys?“ Jirou asked.

“It’s unlikely,” Hiroshi said. “Girls wouldn’t do that. Besides, you can see the person behind the window.”

The mirror wasn’t a very good surveillance tool. It wasn’t something his doppelgänger could have built himself, either. All that was sure was that he knew this camp inside out like he was haunting it.

—

Hiroshi took another power nap while the other campers enjoyed an ice cream buffet with all the toppings they wanted. It had to be the first time on this camp that no one was playing extra-curricular games until curfew.

Hiroshi took off as soon as the sun set. He waited on the steps of the sports field, racket on his lap, for the boy to show up. This time he would get some answers.

When the boy came, this time through the field and not the woods, he looked more like Hiroshi than he’d ever looked before. His posture would have made Hiroshi’s mother proud, his gait was even and he carried his racket without any fidgeting. He was careful not to bang the gate lock against the fence as he opened it and set it gently on the ground. He only adjusted one wrinkle out of his shirt and no longer touched his glasses absentmindedly like seeing if he still had them on.

Hiroshi played one game with him without more than a nod for greeting, hoping to relax his opponent before the questions started.

“So, thanks to your prank earlier today, my roommate now thinks the locker room is haunted. In the afternoon he went to use the dorm bathroom instead.”

The other boy chuckled, quite unlike Hiroshi’s laugh. Hiroshi raised an eyebrow, and the boy straightened his face.

“You’d probably want me to believe you’re that ghost,” Hiroshi pressed on.

“What ghost?”

“The one that died on this court last year.”

“Nothing like that happened.”

“So you were here last year?” Now they were getting somewhere.

The boy went back to serving position, leaving the question unanswered. He hit a fast ball that blasted right past Hiroshi. He may have angered him.

“I don’t understand what you’re doing here,” Hiroshi said. “With shots like that, you could be playing with Senri-kun and Kippei-kun. I don’t think that’s even the best you can do. Aren’t you just wasting your time with me?”

The boy played coy, like Hiroshi might do if he received undeserved praise.

“You overestimate me. This is good practice.”

“I see. Do you ever play against them? Senri-kun or Kippei-kun or Atobe-kun or Yanagi-kun?”

The boy looked like he was about to answer, but changed his mind at the last moment.

“We should go back to our game.”

“Why?” Hiroshi insisted. “How can it be good practice for you when I can barely return your shots? That’s not how practice works. You should find someone to challenge you.”

He had no idea how minds of the strong players worked. They all seemed so weird to him with all the rivalries and constant need to play.

“It’s your turn to serve.”

Hiroshi served, and they rallied for a moment. The boy’s movement still looked like his, it was just a little quicker, and his receiving position was always just a little better than his.

The mystery boy finished the point with Hiroshi’s fast shot, safely within the court lines. It irritated Hiroshi even further. Was the only reason they were doing this to make him feel bad for his lack of skills?

“It’s really very good practice,” the boy said. “This is not a bad style of tennis.”

“It’s not even a style of tennis,” Hiroshi argued. It wasn’t like he was Atobe or Yanagi or even Kiyosumi. There were lots of people on the camp who were perfecting all these fancy techniques, and he wasn’t one of them. “I just try to hit the ball.”

“Of course you have a style of tennis,” said the doppelgänger. “It’s not like you’re some stupid beginner who doesn’t know which end of racket to use.“

“That’s not something I would say,” Hiroshi gave him a pointed look.

He was breaking character. That was good. They were getting somewhere.

The other boy composed himself.

“What I mean is that this style of tennis could go a long way,” he said, sounding more like Hiroshi. “You just need to mind the height of the ball when you hit the drive volley.”

So they were back to tennis lessons now. Hiroshi fed him an underhand serve so he could demonstrate his latest discoveries in perfecting Hiroshi’s moves for him to copy back. Hiroshi decided to play along. He had made some progress tonight, and with some luck, he would get an opportunity for more questions.

—

Functioning with little sleep was getting easier. Hiroshi only took a 20-minute nap after morning practice and made it to lunch in time. He stood in the food line behind Marui, so it felt natural to sit down with him and Yanagi. He realised a few days had passed since they’d last talked.

“How is your training?”

“It has slowed down,” Yanagi told him. “Atobe-kun keeps trying to challenge me, but mostly everyone concentrates on improving their skills for the last day tournament.”

“You’ll play him on the last day, right? It’s gonna be the two of you in the final for sure,“ Marui said.

“Perhaps, if we don’t go against each other on an earlier round. I would think we’d be seeded on opposite sides.”

“Who do you think are gonna make it in your group, Yagyuu-kun?”

“I believe we get two spots, so it has to be Jirou-kun and Kiyosumi-kun.”

“I don’t even know who they are.”

“Do you know anyone in the second group aside from Yagyuu-kun?” Yanagi asked.

“Well, not really.”

“Perhaps you get a chance to play with them in a couple of days,” Hiroshi said.

“There is actually something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Yagyuu-kun,” Yanagi said. “About the messages I’ve been getting.”

“Are you still getting them? I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I saw you slip one under my door a couple days ago.”

“What? I didn’t…” Hiroshi had done no such thing. Why would Yanagi say something like that?

It didn’t take him very long to figure it out.

“I didn’t know that’s what it was,” he finished. “I’m very sorry. I just saw it was addressed to you and thought I’d give it to you. I should have known better.”

“I see,” Yanagi said. Hiroshi couldn’t tell if he believed him or not. He also couldn’t believe he was lying for that guy again. He only did it because this explanation was more believable than someone going around disguised as him. “Do you by any chance know Sadaharu?”

“I don’t think so.”

Could that be the mystery boy? Hiroshi really wanted to know who he was taking the blame for.

He wanted to ask Yanagi more questions about this Sadaharu who might be connected to the case, but he was interrupted by Senri and Kippei’s arrival. The Kyuushuu pair sat down with them, and the last place at the take was snatched by Kaoru.

“Hello,” Hiroshi greeted his roommate. He’d only seen Kaoru briefly this morning. They hadn’t even spoken since Kaoru caught him looking into the locker room mirror. “Aren’t your friends here?”

Kaoru shrugged. Hiroshi looked around. He could see Takeshi and Wakashi sitting at another table. Had they fallen out?

“Takeshi-kun wanted me to let him into our room so he can go through your stuff. He thinks you put wasabi in his toothpaste.”

“What? Of course I didn’t. Why would I? I didn’t even know there was wasabi in his toothpaste.”

“It was kinda funny,” Senri said. “He threw up in the sink.”

“Why does he think it was me?”

“He says you’re too mysterious,” Kaoru said.

“This guy?” Kippei pointed at Hiroshi. “No way, he’s way too serious to be a prankster. I think it was really you, and you’re just framing him because he’s too big for that runt to beat up.”

Kaoru looked frightened.

“Kaoru-kun wouldn’t do that, would you?”

Kaoru shook his head. Kippei shrugged.

Hiroshi was such a bad senpai. It had been days since he’d even asked Kaoru how he was doing. He’d never helped him with tennis, even though he’d promised to do so. Kaoru had been covering for him for days and he had never even explained what he was doing at nights. Kaoru falling out with his friends because of him was just the latest hit he’d taken for him.

Hiroshi should have done better.

“But hey, at least that kid didn’t think it was us,” Senri pointed out. “He’s got to be the only one.”

“Oh yeah,” Kippei said. “So, that Atobe told the camp counselors about the phone thing, and they searched our room this morning. Obviously they didn’t find anything, because we didn’t take it, but it was a pain in the ass. We should just go and take some of his stuff since we’re gonna get yelled at anyway.“

Hiroshi hoped he was just kidding. He was not familiar with any incident involving Atobe’s phone, but it sounded like things were getting ugly.

“It seems to me like someone’s trying really hard to create bad blood on this camp,” he said. “I don’t think anyone here actually hates anyone. It’s just the pranks and thefts and rumours that make it seem that way.”

“So you think someone’s setting us up?” Senri asked.

“And possibly me too,” Hiroshi nodded. “I just don’t understand who would do such a thing.”

“We had our share of problems last year, too,” Yanagi pointed out.

“Not like this though,” Senri argued. “It was just Seiichi beating crap out of people. It wasn’t so bad.”

“It has to be Atobe,” Kippei decided. “He probably thinks it will give him an edge in the last day’s games or something. I’m not falling for that.”

“But Atobe-senpai won’t be playing with Takeshi-kun or me,” Kaoru said.

“That’s right,” Hiroshi said. “Almost everyone on this camp has been targeted. Atobe-kun wouldn’t care about the beginners.”

“So it’s just someone who likes pranking people for the fun of it,” Marui concluded. “Do we know anyone like that? Oh yeah, two of them sitting right here at this table.”

“Why does everyone think we like that sort of stuff?” Senri asked, exasperated. Kippei just made a rude gesture at Marui. “We didn’t do anything like that last year, right, Renji?”

“We had a rather good time last year,” Yanagi agreed.

Hiroshi was quite sure he knew who was behind the pranks, but it didn’t do him any good as long as he didn’t know the guy’s name or real face. He had been hoping the others could give him hints, but all they did was go around in circles. The boy might have as well been a ghost, hiding in the dark, only coming out in disguise, teaching Hiroshi tennis at night and, for reasons unknown, making him play better than he’d ever played before.

—

Confrontations were not Hiroshi’s forte. When his little sister ate his treats, he would always tell their mother, who would make his sister apologise and send her to the nearby convenience store to get him some new sweets. That tactic obviously wouldn’t work tonight.

He waited until they had entered the court on the hill. He hesitated before serving. Maybe it would be easier to just get it out now.

He served the ball. It went down fast, almost hitting the service box line. The other boy was already in position, returning the ball. It flew towards him, still gaining height. If he backed some, he could maybe smash it.

He took a step forward and hit the drive volley instead. The ball blasted over the net and hit the court. His opponent nodded.

“Very good.”

This was the best chance he was going to get.

“You need to stop.”

The other Hiroshi tilted his head. “Excuse me?”

Hiroshi walked up to the net, holding his racket in a tight, nervous grip.

“I don’t mind playing with you like this, but I know it’s not all you’re doing. You’re stealing from people. You’re pulling pranks that might get someone hurt. Everyone should be able to enjoy this camp.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. You’ve taken things. I know those are my spare glasses. I checked and they were gone. You need to give everything back. And no more pranks either! No water buckets or soap on the floor or toothpaste tricks. And you can’t write mean stuff to Yanagi-kun. If he did something to you, you need to talk it out like sensible people.“

The boy stared at him, but his expression no longer looked like one of Hiroshi’s. His eyes were intense and his mouth was drawn in a tight line.

“It’s none of your business.”

“Of course it’s my business when you do it looking like me! I’m not going to cover for you anymore! If anyone ever asks me again about something that they saw me do but I didn’t, I’ll tell everyone.“

“What are you going to tell? I don’t always look like you, you know.”

“I hope you’re not going around pretending to be someone else, too.”

“What, you thought you were special?” the boy sneered.

It hurt more than Hiroshi cared to admit.

“What I’m saying is that you need to come clean. Give back everything you took and apologise to everyone.”

“Yeah? So if you find all the stuff, everyone will just let it go? Maybe I’ll try it.”

“It would be the best thing to do. I’m sure they will forgive you as long as you’re honest.”

“So who should be the culprit? That redhead wannabe, maybe? No one likes him. Or the annoying one in your group?”

“Please tell me you’re not planning to frame someone else.” The discussion was not going like Hiroshi had wanted it to.

“Why should you care as long as it’s not you? These people hate each other anyway. How about Yanagi? He already betrayed his doubles partner. Or maybe the Kyuushuu idiots? No one would miss them.”

“I would miss them,” Hiroshi insisted. “What have they ever done to you?”

“Maybe it’s that kid from England. He thinks way too much of himself just because no one strong bothered to show up at this camp.”

Hiroshi knew it wasn’t any of them. He was staring at the real culprit straight in the face, and he still had no idea who he was. He didn’t like this turn of events. He had hoped the pranks had been just some innocent fun that got a bit too far, but it sounded like the mystery boy had a chip on his shoulder.

Hiroshi didn’t want anything to do with it.

“I think we should call this a night.”

—

Kaoru was still awake when Hiroshi got back to their room. He wondered if the sixth-grader had stayed up late waiting for his return.

“Sorry I’m late. I was playing tennis. I’ll try not to miss curfew again.”

“Okay,” Kaoru said. “Goodnight.”

Kaoru fell asleep quickly, but Hiroshi couldn’t get sleep for another hour. He had less than two days to figure out mystery boy’s identity, and considering the way he’d left their nightly game, he might have to watch out for revenge, too. It was not how he had planned to spend his camp time.

The next day he went to the first group’s court to take another look at the left-handed player, Shiraishi. He had to be strong to be in that group, but nothing about him indicated the hatred or resent he’d felt last night. Yanagi seemed to like him, too.

He tried to stick with other people all day. That way he would at least have an alibi if the mystery boy tried to do something bad looking like him. He stuck with Kiyosumi and Kentarou through lunch and afternoon training, had dinner with Jirou and Atobe and joined Marui and Yanagi for the evening activities.

“I’m resting for tomorrow’s tournament,” Marui explained.

“That seems wise,” Hiroshi agreed.

“It’s not like I want to be doing this lame origami stuff.”

If Marui didn’t want to take part in craft night, he could have just stayed in his room, but Hiroshi chose to let it go.

“What has been your favourite activity on this camp?”

“Ice cream night, definitely. I had like four cones,” Marui laughed. “And leftovers, too. It was so cool they let us eat until all the containers were empty. Karaoke was fun, too, even though I only got to sing one song. And that guy in your group who does impressions was super funny. I was sure Atobe would punch him when he did that monologue about his castle in England.”

Hiroshi had no idea what Marui was talking about, but it sure felt important.

“What? Which guy? When did that happen?”

“Variety night? Weren’t you there? It’s that guy in your group, the one with the headband thing. Maybe he’s trying to copy Yukimura-kun. I don’t know his name.”

“Yuuji-kun?”

Yuuji had a tendency to spend more time goofing around than playing, and Hiroshi didn’t consider him a very good player. He laughed loudly and often and always hung out with the same group of friends. He was also too short to be the boy Hiroshi had been playing with, but maybe there was some way to overcome height that he hadn’t figured out yet.

It felt like a major oversight on his part.

He may have spaced out for a moment, because Marui went back to folding paper. Yanagi was still watching him impassively.

It was the last night of the camp and Hiroshi realised for the first time he might really be in this over his head.

“I could do with some fresh air,” he said. “Yanagi-kun, would you like to come with me?”

“Sure.”

They still had time, if they moved quick.

“Something is bothering you,” Yanagi remarked.

“We have some walking to do and not very much time, so I’d rather explain on the way,” Hiroshi replied quietly.

They put on their shoes quickly and made it out of the dorms. One of the front courts was occupied by sixth-graders, honing their techniques for tomorrow’s games. All the good players seemed to have opted for rest instead.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Hiroshi said once they had passed the courts. “I know I should have told you sooner, considering how much the pranks have affected you. I thought I could find out who was behind them on my own, but I seem to be failing.”

“What is it that you know about the pranks?”

“I know that the person who’s behind them can be found at the hilltop court. The problem is that he is… disguised. I need your help to find out his identity.”

“If he is on this camp, I’m sure I’ll be able to recognise him.”

“We may need to physically restrain him to find out who he is.“ Hiroshi didn’t want to resort to violence - he had never been in a fight in his life - but he didn’t think his ghost would go down easily.

“I’m okay with that.”

Yanagi didn’t look like the violent type, either. The content of the letters must have been bad.

When they reached the sports field, Hiroshi decided they should try to stay in shadows. The court lights were out and he couldn’t see anyone there. They circled the field instead of going through it and climbed the other side of the hill. He picked a spot where they wouldn’t be easily seen if someone approached from the field or the woods, and they sat down to wait.

“How do you know he will be here?” Yanagi asked.

“Do you remember when Marui-kun told us that he had seen Tezuka-san on the camp? I also happened to see someone on the courts one night. I didn’t believe that it was Tezuka-san, but I started to follow him in the evenings. He has been coming here for the past few nights.”

“And he has no idea you’ve been spying on him?“

Hiroshi wanted to say that the boy had never seen him, but knew he would get busted if they caught him.

“No, he knows I’ve been here. I have spoken with him. That’s why I’m sure he was behind the pranks. It’s just that he always disguises himself and changes his voice…”

It sounded stupid, but Yanagi would soon see it with his own eyes.

“Was he the one who told you to bring me that letter?”

This time Hiroshi decided to lie. “Yes.”

“I see. I hope we see him soon.”

They sat on the ground, occasionally talking in low voice, as the night got darker and colder. Curfew passed, and Hiroshi was sure Yanagi would soon call him a liar and walk away, but he stayed.

After two more hours Hiroshi had to admit defeat. Maybe the boy was still angry at Hiroshi because of what he’d said last night and had no more interest in playing with him.

“I’m sorry. I really thought that he would be here. We’d better head back to the dorms. I know how to get in without anyone seeing us.”

“I’m sorry too,” said Yanagi, standing up. “But at least you have given me new clues. I will keep searching.”

“I’m fairly sure he was on this camp last year. He’s also a much better tennis player than I am. I believe he must be in your group.”

“That doesn’t leave us many suspects. Only myself, Senri-kun and Kippei-kun meet those conditions.“

“I see. I believe Senri-kun to be too tall, though. But we must not jump to conclusions too easily.”

It would be awfully disappointing if it turned out to be Kippei. Hiroshi already considered him a friend. He would much rather have the culprit be someone like Yuuji, whom he’d barely spoken with at practice.

When he sneaked back in his room, Kaoru already asleep in the top bunk, he noticed his spare pair of glasses sitting on the dresser. He hoped that it meant that everything else had been returned as well.

—

On the very last morning of the camp, Hiroshi went out of his way to create changes for the mystery boy to find him. He hung out behind the tool sheds, took one more walk to the hilltop court and crawled under every changing room locker, but he couldn’t find a trace of the boy. He could have at least left a message, if just to confirm he was real and not just a figment of Hiroshi’s overactive imagination.

He had to end his search when the campers was called to gather for the final tournament. Everyone was taking part. It meant that the mystery boy had to be there, too.

The older boys were told to warm up as the sixth-graders began their games. Hiroshi stayed on the court side, jogging on spot and stretching his muscles while cheering Kaoru on. It was the least he could do as a senpai.

It was obvious that the sixth-graders were not used to playing six full games, and Kaoru stumbled his way through his matches with more luck than skill. Hiroshi was still very proud to see him win twice and make it to the next level of the tournament. As expected, Kaoru’s luck ran out when he was matched against Kentarou, but he didn’t seem too sad about it. Hiroshi made sure to congratulate him when he came out, and then it was Kaoru’s turn to cheer Hiroshi on in his first match.

Hiroshi was glad he hadn’t been matched against a sixth-grader. He wouldn’t have wanted to knock his roommate out of the tournament, not when Kaoru had made so much progress on the camp.

Instead, his first opponent was Yuuji. If he was truly the master of imitation, this would be his time to show his true colours. Hiroshi kept a close eye on him, waiting for him to break out the fast and impossibly accurate shots he knew mystery boy could do.

They never came. Hiroshi won the match, six games to Yuuji’s two, and had to bury the theory of Yuuji being the ghost he was looking for. When they shook hands over the net, Yuuji laughed light-heartedly and congratulated him.

His next opponent was Kentarou, and he finished the match with the same 6-2 score and no more surprises, just sweatier than before and out of breath. Kaoru was clapping his hands while trying to hold a sleepy Jirou upright on the bench.

“Jirou-kun, aren’t you playing?”

“What? Oh, I finished already. I lost to Kiyosumi, so I don’t get to play anymore.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Sorry and a little shocked. “I wish I could have been there to support you.”

“Nah, it was a boring game. 5-7. Atobe said that I got complacent. I have to do better next time or he’ll kick me out of the team.“

It suddenly hit Hiroshi that there would be no next time. Jirou and Kiyosumi would probably never play each other again. They couldn’t even come back to this camp next year because they would be too old for it.

He would probably never see Jirou or Kaoru again. He knew that both boys lived in Tokyo, which wasn’t that far away, but still further than his parents would let him travel alone.

It was a very sad thing to think about.

“Yagyuu-kun? Are you ready?” Yanagi tapped him on the shoulder.

“Ready for what?”

“Our game.”

They had progressed far enough in the tournament that the first group seeds were coming in. Hiroshi had a brief moment of panic. He’d never intended to come this far. He certainly wouldn’t have, if some bad luck hadn’t put Jirou and Kiyosumi in the same bracket. Yanagi was one of the Rikkai champions, a genius first grader who had beaten all the third graders in the national tournament. Hiroshi had no hope of winning.

The best he could do was to get it over quickly so the first group could continue the tournament. He apologised to Yanagi for taking too much time and took his position on the court, preparing for worst.

Yanagi didn’t give him his worst. All his shots were as good as Kiyosumi’s very best, but he was not going out of his way to make Hiroshi feel uncomfortable. It was something Hiroshi could deal with. He made sure to watch his form, utilise his whole body and use every little tip and trick he had learnt at the camp.

Yanagi didn’t see his fast shot coming. It landed within the court lines and, to his great surprise, won him two games. Of course, Yanagi was on a whole other level, and soon sealed his shot, taking an easy 2-6 win.

“You played very well,” Yanagi said as they shook hands. “It would be a pity for that talent to go to waste. You should join the school club.”

“I will think about it,” Hiroshi promised, but he knew his answer wasn’t going to change. This strange camp had been more fun than he had expected, but he still liked golf better. “Good luck in your next game.”

With only the first group left to play, Kiyosumi having lost to Marui on the other court while Hiroshi was playing with Yanagi, the tournament was getting serious. Hiroshi and Kaoru left Jirou to sleep on the bench and situated themselves between the two courts so they could see the Kyuushuu pair play, Senri with Atobe on one court and Kippei with Shiraishi on the other.

Watching tennis only got interesting when you knew the people playing it. Hiroshi knew who he wanted to win, but having never seen anyone play seriously, he had no idea what to expect.

“Look! There’s Chitose-senpai’s super topspin shot,” Kaoru said. Hiroshi had no idea what he was talking about, but he had to admit he had no idea how it could be returned. Atobe was better prepared, though, and smashed the ball back into Senri’s court.

Kippei and Shiraishi’s game was not as flashy, but it was the one Hiroshi really wanted to see. These boys were his most likely suspects, and watching their game, he became sure that both of them possessed the skills to perfect his fast shot. It was just that Shiraishi was left-handed and hadn’t attended this camp before, and Kippei was… Kippei, loud and blond and would always prefer practising with Senri over training Hiroshi.

Kippei won his game, but his joy turned into annoyance once he learnt Atobe had beat Senri on the other court.

“It was a good game,” Atobe said, but Kippei didn’t want to hear it and stalked back to his own court.

Senri joined Hiroshi and Kaoru as the other Rikkai players took to courts, Marui with Atobe and Yanagi with Kippei.

“It sucks to have lost in the first game,” Senri said, “but I’ll get my revenge soon enough. We’ll all be at the newcomer tournament in November, and then there’s the camp next summer.”

“Aren’t we all too old next year to come back?” Hiroshi reminded him.

“There’s an invitational camp for second and third-graders. I’m actually surprised they didn’t take Renji, Seiichi and Genichirou this year. It’s not like they aren’t good enough.”

“I see,” Hiroshi said. He was not going to attend any tennis tournaments, so he wouldn’t be invited to any camps either. His brief stint in tennis was truly over.

Marui’s game finished quickly in a 1-6 loss, and he joined them to watch Yanagi and Kippei’s game. Hiroshi didn’t say anything, but he was glad there were at least two people he didn’t have to say goodbye to today. He might not belong to the tennis club, but surely he would see Marui and Yanagi at school. Maybe they could even meet up on weekends.

“Go, go, go Kippei!”

Senri’s shout startled Hiroshi. He had not been paying much attention to the game. Yanagi and Kippei had seemed evenly matched, but Kippei was now pulling ahead. His shots were getting more powerful, and even though Yanagi could still return them, his balls were going wobbly. Kippei was right behind the net, ready to return them, and the points were beginning to rack up.

“I can’t believe Yanagi-kun lost,” Marui said when the score was announced to be 6-4 to Kippei. “He won in the nationals!”

“It’s not like Kippei is chopped liver either,” Senri pointed out. “We’re taking next year’s nationals for sure.“

“We still have Yukimura-kun and Sanada-kun! Does your team even have anyone else decent?”

“We’re still working on them,” Senri had to admit. “But you’ll see next year. If you ever make it to the team, I promise I’ll take you on myself.”

“Fine by me,” Marui said, and they shook on it.

The one most surprised by the result of the match was Atobe.

“Did you do this on purpose just to avoid me?” he asked Yanagi. “I can’t believe you would go that far.”

Yanagi shook his head. “I did my best. It was not enough today. Have a good game.”

“Like I haven’t beaten Tachibana a dozen times before,” Atobe muttered as he took serving position and the tournament final began.

Atobe was not able to add to his list of victories. Kippei played like no one had ever seen him play before. Atobe was taken completely by surprise, and even Senri was impressed by his friend.

It made Hiroshi think maybe his mysterious friend had been Kippei all along. Kippei and a really good wig. But there was no way to know for sure. Perhaps mystery boy hadn’t attended lessons in the first place.

He hated to see the mystery go unsolved, but in the end, no matter how much he had wished, his ghost had not come out. The book ended before the sleuth caught the criminal. The tournament was finished, his bags were packed, parents were starting to turn up to pick up their kids and the camp was over.


	2. Chapter 2

Summer holidays passed and school came back to session. Hiroshi went back to golf training and was glad to find out that a few weeks’ break had barely affected his swing. His friends told him all about the golf camp, and he was just a little sad to have missed it, but he had stories from his trip to England to share.

He didn’t tell them much about the tennis camp. They didn’t even seem interested in it. Instead, they talked about the student council and put in their applications to join.

Every now and then he ran into Marui and got the latest tennis news. Marui mostly liked to talk about his own training and the approaching newcomer tournament, but he also told that the third graders had officially left the team and Yukimura had been chosen as the new captain. According to Marui, it was only a matter of time Yukimura would promote him to the team.

Meanwhile, Hiroshi practised golf. He had made amazing tennis progress on the camp. It gave him confidence to believe he could also bring down his handicap if he just kept practising. He hoped to inspire his golf friends to do the same, but it turned out that they would rather go home than stay on the green until nightfall.

It was not quite autumn yet, but the weather was no longer hot and humid. Hiroshi was working on his swing alone when someone called his name.

He turned around to see a guy in an orange jersey. Tennis club.

He didn’t know this person. He had messy bleached hair, bad posture and a smirk Hiroshi didn’t like.

“Yes?”

“Come with me,” the guy said, turned around and started to walk away.

Hiroshi made note that he also had bad manners. Still, his matter might be important. Perhaps Yanagi had sent this boy to fetch him. He packed his golf clubs and followed the boy to the tennis courts.

“What is it that you need to show me?” he asked when he didn’t see anything but an empty court.

“This,” the boy said. “Did you forget you were supposed to join the tennis club?”

“I never said I’d do that.”

The boy gave him a thoroughly unimpressed look and started talking about battlefields and his attitude.

Hiroshi still had no idea who he was and why he was doing it.

“Thank you, but I’m not interested,” he finally said. “Please tell Yanagi-kun I’ve made up my mind. I’m not joining the tennis club. Good night.”

The boy frowned as Hiroshi walked away. He was almost out of the school gate when he heard the boy call after him: “Why the fuck did I waste all that time on you if you’re not even going to use what you learnt?”

Hiroshi turned around, but he could no longer see the boy. He had disappeared.

Just like he had all those times on the camp.

—

Hiroshi deferred his decision until morning. He couldn’t abandon golf club and his friends there just because he was suddenly a step closer to solving the tennis mystery he had already given up on.

But if there was still a change to solve it, he couldn’t just let it go. All the pieces were coming together. The mystery guy was here in Rikkai. He was in the tennis club. Hiroshi had seen another one of his faces - he was no longer so naïve as to believe it was his real one.

All that remained was the question the boy had asked him last night. Hiroshi didn’t know why he’d helped him with his tennis, only that his joining the tennis club seemed to factor in somehow. Like before, doing as the mystery boy wanted might be the only way to get answers.

He asked the golf club advisor if it would be okay for him to skip afternoon practice for a while and only come practise in the evenings. The teacher told him he could do as he wanted. It was only a hobby, after all, and his studies were always more important. Hiroshi didn’t correct him.

He had to submit a formal enrolment form before he was allowed in tennis club practice. It was weird to be the new kid, everyone else having joined at the beginning of the school year. There was a discussion about if he should be put on ball picking duty, something the other first years had recently finished, but Yanagi put in a good word for him and he was allowed to go straight to practice.

Hiroshi would have been fine with ball picking, since playing tennis was not necessary for his plan. All he needed to do was meet with the mystery boy and see if he was willing to reveal his motives now that Hiroshi had done what he’d wanted.

Instead of his ghost, Hiroshi was welcomed to the club by Marui.

“I knew you would join the club,” Marui said. “You can’t just give up tennis, right?”

“It seems so,” Hiroshi replied, not wanting to explain his reasons. “Would you mind introducing me to the other members?”

Hiroshi was the 25th freshman boy to join the club this year, but he only counted 22 people at morning practice. None of the faces looked anything like the one that had brought him to the court two nights ago. He was disappointed but not surprised.

“Yukimura-kun, Sanada-kun and Yanagi-kun don’t practise with us,” Marui explained when he asked about the member count. “They’re already regulars, so they’re playing with senpai.”

“I see. Let’s work hard on becoming regulars, then,” Hiroshi said, leading Marui to monologue about his impending success and giving Hiroshi time to do another round of assessments. He would pick out boys who had the physique to pass as both him and the blond guy, and then he would investigate them further.

He knew his ghost was out there watching him. It was just a matter of time he caught him.

—

Instead of having lunch in the classroom, Hiroshi took his bentou to the schoolyard to engage in people watching. It was a long shot, but it might help him figure out if the blond boy really existed or if it had been just a random disguise.

For the first fifteen minutes, absolutely nothing happened. Hiroshi decided that the whole idea had been useless, and saw Yanagi’s arrival as a welcome distraction.

“Do you mind if we sit with you, Yagyuu-kun?”

“Please.” He scooted over to make room for three more people.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t have time to talk to you in the morning practice. I hope everything went well?”

“Yes, of course. Marui-kun was kind enough to show me around. It was actually quite similar to practice at the camp.”

“I’m glad to hear that. This is Yukimura Seiichi, and here’s Sanada Genichirou. This is Yagyuu-kun, who joined the tennis club today. He went to the camp with me this summer.”

Hiroshi had already recognised the freshmen stars of the tennis team. Yukimura smiled at him, Sanada nodded but didn’t seem all that interested in him.

“It’s nice to meet you,” he said to be polite, even though he wouldn’t be in the club long enough to play or even train with them.

“We heard about the camp,” Yukimura said. He was still smiling, so Hiroshi assumed he’d heard about the parts that didn’t involve mean letters and futile ghost hunts.

“I’d like to play against that Atobe,” Sanada said.

“It was actually Kippei-kun that won the tournament,” Hiroshi reminded him.

“He has come a long way,” Yukimura said. “A year ago he wasn’t on Renji’s level.”

“That’s right, Seiichi,” Yanagi nodded. “Both him and Senri have become stronger. However, Shishigaku team as a whole is not strong enough to pose a threat to us.“

The following conversation about the strengths and weaknesses of several southern teams was mostly lost to Hiroshi. He finished his lunch, nodding along every now and then, just like he’d done at the camp when eating with the top group.

It wasn’t how he had planned to use his time in junior high. He should give himself a time limit. If he couldn’t reveal the ghost’s true identity soon, he should go back to golf club and his old friends, and forget this tennis thing ever happened.

A blond boy stalked around the corner and entered the school building like he’d heard his thoughts. Hiroshi jumped up.

“Yanagi-kun, Yukimura-kun, Sanada-kun, I’m sorry, I just realised I’m late for something…” He picked up his lunch box and was halfway through the yard by the end of the sentence.

The blond was leisurely putting his shoes in a shoe locker like he didn’t have a care in the world. Hiroshi stopped and stared. It was definitely the same guy he’d seen a couple nights before. But was it the ghost?

The boy finished slamming his feet in his indoor slippers and turned around. Hiroshi’s breath caught, but the boy ignored him.

“Hello,” he said as the boy passed him.

The blond finally looked at his face, but his face only conveyed mild confusion.

“Hi,” he said back with a little nod, and then he was on his way again.

Hiroshi quickly took off his own shoes and made it back to the corridor just in time to see which classroom the blond entered. He walked to the door and hesitated. What should he say? There was a chance the ghost had been disguised and this guy had nothing to do with him, so he couldn’t just accuse him of anything.

“Oh, it’s Yagyuu-kun. Were you looking for me?”

Hiroshi turned around to see Marui.

“No, actually I’m… Is this your classroom?”

“Yep. Why?”

“I was…” Maybe it was time to let Marui in on what was going on. “I was wondering if I knew one of your classmates from somewhere. A boy with bleached hair? Is he in the tennis club?”

Marui scratched his head. “That Niou guy? No, he was never in the club. I don’t think he’s interested in tennis. I would know if he played, right? But, umm, Hikaru-kun is in the club. He’s there in the front. But don’t play with him, his backhand sucks so bad. And Kyo-kun was in the club for like two weeks, but then he decided he didn’t want to wake up for morning practice.”

“I see,” Hiroshi said before Marui could go on. “My mistake, then.”

It was probably just another red herring.

—

While he waited for his ghost to turn up again, Hiroshi had nothing to do but to play tennis. After the summer camp, two tennis practices a day felt perfectly reasonable. He would start his day with morning practice that usually included general physical training and racket swings, have his school lessons and then spend another training session playing.

By now all freshmen were able to get through six games, though the level gap between those who had only began tennis five months ago and those who had been playing for years was still significant. They all seemed nice enough, so Hiroshi didn’t mind spending some of his time giving tips to the less experienced players. He felt that it was the least he could do, as he wasn’t going to stick around long enough to qualify for the team and represent the school in any tournaments.

The second and third years were not as nice. They preferred not to socialise with the freshmen, and they often went out of their way to cause Yanagi, Yukimura and Sanada trouble. Marui said that they were just jealous of them, which in Hiroshi’s opinion might explain their behaviour but did not justify it at all. He made no effort to get to know the senpai aside from dropping in at their practice to make sure his ghost wasn’t hiding with them.

After afternoon practice ended, Hiroshi would take a break from playing to do his homework and then get back to the court. After all, his ghost was most likely to show up after dark when he was alone.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one doing extra training. Half a dozen players would stay at the courts until seven, and on most nights, Sanada would be practising even later. Hiroshi guessed that was what it took to be a freshman regular.

On the first night Hiroshi asked him to show him how to use the ball machine, but after that they rarely communicated. Hiroshi practised his serve or the fast drive volley, Sanada had an unforgiving training routine that made Hiroshi question how he could still get up in the morning and do it all again in morning practice.

It didn’t surprise him that after two weeks, his ghost still hadn’t turned up. He was getting tired of spending all his free time on tennis, but he kept turning up in evenings, hoping that tonight would be the night his ghost appeared again.

—

“I’m just gonna play with you today,” Marui said as they were beginning afternoon practice. “I don’t wanna deal with anyone who can’t take one point from me. Why are they not allowing us to play with second graders? I could beat them, you know.”

“That’s fine,” Hiroshi replied to the initial question, ignoring the rest of Marui’s complaints. Now that he had got to know the red-head better, he was actually a rather pleasant opponent. He rarely goofed off during games, and their skill gap had closed enough to give them both a good challenge.

“Speaking of beating, did you hear whom Sanada-kun beat yesterday?”

“His personal record at burpees, I presume.”

“Atobe!”

“What?” Hiroshi had practised against a ball machine until 8:30 pm, Sanada training on the adjacent court. Atobe had not been present.

“Yeah, he went to Tokyo with Yukimura-kun and Yanagi-kun. Yukimura-kun said that he’d play Atobe-kun if Atobe-kun could beat Sanada-kun and Yanagi-kun, but Sanada-kun totally destroyed him, and he couldn’t even play Yanagi-kun after that. Man, I wish I’d been there to see it! Now we know for sure who’s the best in Kantou. Do you think they’re gonna go to Kyuushuu to beat Tachibana-kun, too?”

Hiroshi didn’t care to speculate who the freshmen regulars would play next. He was seething internally. He had been tricked again.

Afternoon practice calmed him down. He realised that for the first time, he had the upper hand. Mystery boy had made a mistake, and it was likely that he didn’t even know it yet.  
He did his homework as usual and went back to the court at precisely same time as always. He did a light warm-up and put the ball machine on default setting.

Sanada entered the other court, giving him a curt nod when their eyes met.

He was wearing a blue cap, the same one he always wore to practice. It covered his forehead and cast a shadow over his eyes. He had a good posture and he handled his racket like an expert. It was no wonder he’d been able to fool Hiroshi, who had never seen the real Sanada play.

Hiroshi cleared his throat.

“Sanada-kun, would you mind helping me with something?”

“Is it the ball machine again?” the ghost replied, sounding mildly annoyed.

“No, not this time. I’ve actually been watching you practise for a while now, and there’s one thing I don’t understand. I was hoping you could help clear it up?“

“What?”

“Why aren’t you doing it as yourself?”

Hiroshi finally got the reaction he’d been waiting for since tennis camp. The boy’s eyes widened in surprise, and for a moment he looked nothing like Sanada despite wearing the cap and team jersey. He started saying something, but then he closed his mouth, turned around and started running.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night!” Hiroshi shouted after him, and then he chuckled. He still hadn’t got his answers, but it turned out that revenge felt just as good.

—

His gloating only lasted one night. The next day he was sure he’d made a terrible mistake and scared mystery boy off for good. There was no way he would turn up tonight after being called out like that. It would be a repeat of the last night at the camp.

Hiroshi didn’t even like his evening practice. He had been working on things mystery boy had shown him earlier, but his progress had slowed down and he was getting bored. He should just quit doing it before he started hating tennis.

Still, he had told his ghost to see him tonight, so he had no choice but to go. Maybe the boy would be secretly watching him even if he didn’t turn up on the court disguised as Sanada. Perhaps there was a reason he had told Hiroshi to join the club, and all Hiroshi’s efforts would be rewarded.

It was just a small hope, but it got Hiroshi to set up the ball machine one last time to work on the drive volley.

Mystery boy didn’t turn up on the court disguised as Sanada. He came as Hiroshi.

“I didn’t expect you to come,” Hiroshi told him truthfully. “Aren’t you afraid someone sees us?”

“It’s not like anyone’s looking for us,” the boy shrugged, not sounding at all like Hiroshi. “We’re okay as long as no one comes on the court. Even if someone walked by the clubhouse, we could be any two guys with dark hair.”

Hiroshi considered pointing out that the boy was not any guy with dark hair. It was Hiroshi’s brown, parted hair, and his face looked very much like Hiroshi’s face. He had even got a new pair of spectacles that looked like Hiroshi’s. The boy was right, though. They would not raise suspicion if someone saw them from far.

What was more interesting was that the boy wasn’t trying to imitate his manner and speech like he’d done on camp. It made him feel more real to Hiroshi. He looked at the boy’s face for what felt like the hundredth time, but he still wasn’t able to recognise it.

“Do you want to play?” Hiroshi asked, gesturing towards the court. That must be why the boy had come tonight, to see what Hiroshi had learnt in the past weeks.

“Yes,” said the boy, but he didn’t make a move to start a game. “Did you figure that out now? No? Not yet?”

“I don’t understand.”

What was he supposed to figure out? That the boy wanted to play? Wasn’t that what he had asked for every night at the camp?

Maybe not as obvious as it should have been, now that he thought about it.

“You’re not in the tennis club, are you?” Hiroshi confirmed. “Why don’t you join it, then? You do go to this school, right?”

“What do you mean?” the boy asked, this time using Hiroshi’s voice and adjusting his face in a perfect imitation. “I have joined the club just recently.”

“No, you haven’t. I was the one who joined the club. You didn’t…” Hiroshi trailed off as his brain found another meaning for the boys’ words. “I see. Is that why you got me to join the club?”

The boy cocked his head in polite inquiry.

“Did you tell me to join the tennis club so you could play tennis pretending to be me?”

“Yes.”

This was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to Hiroshi. Not even his mystery books had ever turned out like this.

“So that’s what it was all about. I’d been wondering. So you never wanted to teach me tennis? You were just learning how to be me?”

“I needed you to be good enough for it to be believable, but yes, that is pretty accurate.”

Hiroshi felt more cheated than ever.

“So you just picked me at random?”

“No. I met someone who goes to the same school, kinda looks like me and has the potential to go where I wanna go. What were the odds of that happening at some stupid summer camp? I couldn’t miss an opportunity like that.“

“But that’s insane,” Hiroshi pointed out. “Someone would figure it out sooner or later.”

“They don’t know you that well yet. If we switched now, they’d never realise it. Or if you want to, you can go to practice and I can play the real games. I’ll win them for you. I could beat almost anyone here, even as you.”

What the boy was suggesting was cheating. It was breaking the rules and morally wrong. Hiroshi couldn’t possibly take credit for someone else’s game record.

But he also no longer wanted anything to do with the club he’d been tricked into joining. The club had never wanted him in the first place. He was done with the mysteries and bullies and rivalries and late night practices and all that came with tennis. He was ready to go back to golf. What happened in the tennis club would no longer be his problem.

“You certainly have to beat me first,” Hiroshi said, though he already knew how the game would end.

When he lost, one game to mystery boy’s six, he was just glad it was now over.

—

Hiroshi decided that one of these days he and mystery boy should start talking about things instead of just playing tennis. He knew that losing the game last night meant something, but he was not quite sure what, until he arrived at morning practice only to see himself already on the court.

He turned around quickly and ran out of the school gate as fast as he could. He darted to the nearest alley to hide and catch his breath. 

Mystery boy hadn’t been kidding when he said he’d take Hiroshi’s place in the club.

What was Hiroshi supposed to do now? Just wait until practice was over? Sneak out of school after lessons so his ghost could take his place without anyone noticing?

He didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to be pushed aside for the strong players’ power games. He would rather play himself than be just another mask for mystery boy to wear. 

He checked the time. Practice had begun fifteen minutes ago. It should be safe for him to go out.

He entered the school yard again and circled away from the tennis courts. The roof of the school building made for a great surveillance spot. He could see almost everything happening on the courts without being seen himself.

Hiroshi wondered if this was how mystery boy had spent all camp, hiding and watching others play. He was now sure that the boy hadn’t actually attended any lessons.

This morning mystery boy seemed to be enjoying himself. Hiroshi couldn’t make out all his expressions this far away, but he was the first one to swing his racket and finish his shuttle runs. He saw the coach tell him something that must have been a compliment.

It made Hiroshi want to go down and join the group, to show them that he could be just as motivated. Hadn’t he already improved his game dramatically in the past two months? If he had put just a little more effort in tennis, he could have become quite good even without mystery boy.

His doppelgänger was now talking with Marui. Hiroshi held his breath waiting for Marui to realise something was wrong, but his posture stayed relaxed. Mystery boy was certainly good at being Hiroshi.

Practice dragged on for another half an hour. Hiroshi didn’t remember it ever feeling this long when he was attending it. He kept waiting for mystery boy to mess up, to do something Hiroshi would never do, for his wig to fall off or for someone to look at him too closely and realise Hiroshi didn’t quite look like that.

When the coach finally lined the freshmen up to end practice, Hiroshi was quick to leave the roof. He needed to find his doppelgänger before he had the chance to change into someone else and disappear.

He dashed down the stairs and out of the school building. Where would mystery boy go? He probably wouldn’t use the locker room showers, but he would need a place to change.

He spotted the other Hiroshi by the court, fiddling with his shoelaces, probably waiting for the others to leave before him. When he was alone, the doppelgänger started heading towards the school gate.

Hiroshi went after him. There were some people on the school yard, but luckily none of them paid attention to two identical boys passing them. Once they got behind the gate, Hiroshi took a good look around. Not seeing anyone he knew, he felt brave enough to run to mystery boy.

“We shouldn’t be seen together,” mystery boy said.

“You’re right.” It was wrong of Hiroshi to knowingly allow someone else to masquerade as him. “Where are you planning to change?”

The boy glared at him.

“You really need to change before your classes start, Niou-kun.”

It was only a guess, but it was the best one Hiroshi had, and shocking mystery boy had worked out for him before. Out of all the personas the ghost had taken, the blond boy in 1-B was the one that didn’t make sense. If the ghost had wanted to pass as someone who had never been in tennis club, he wouldn’t have worn the club jersey. He had made a mistake.

“Puri,” the boy said. Hiroshi didn’t know if that was a yes or a no. 

Mystery boy took him to a public bath house only two blocks from school. He showed the attendee some kind of membership card, and Hiroshi, who also needed to change into school uniform, paid a few coins to use the facilities. They didn’t speak on the way to the locker room.

The wig was the first thing to come off, and the hair underneath was badly dyed blond. Hiroshi had been right. That was all he needed to know right now, so he turned his back and started to change his own clothes, giving the other boy a chance to go shower.

When he came back, his posture was relaxed and he no longer looked like Hiroshi, not even when he pulled on a similar school uniform. He put some product in his hair to make it stick out even more, his eyes seemed sharper and there was a mole on his chin.

“Stop staring.”

“My apologies,” Hiroshi said. “Are you really going to do this every day, twice a day? It seems like a lot of trouble just to attend a club anyone can join.“

“Not anyone,” Niou replied, stuffing his sweaty clothes into his school bag.

“Marui-kun said that you’ve never played tennis.“

If Niou had been kicked out of tennis club, Marui would have known about it. He had a soft spot for gossip.

“He doesn’t know anything.”

“That much is clear,” Hiroshi agreed. “You are in the same class, but he didn’t even know that you were at the camp. Did you follow him there on purpose?”

“You’re joking, right? Why would I care about that loser? He’s all talk.”

Niou clicked his tongue again and hoisted his school bag over his shoulder. Hiroshi followed him out of the bath house, keeping close just in case he tried to run away again, but all Niou did was walk towards school like everything was normal.

“Why were you at the camp, then? Who were you spying on?”

“I didn’t go to spy on anyone! I never wanted to go in the first place, but my stupid parents signed me up without asking me. Then when I got there, it was just the same stupid shit as last year, so I thought I might as well not go at all.”

“So instead of getting a room in the dorms and attending lessons, you hid in a shed and spied on people.“

“Best decision I’ve made all summer,” Niou said dryly.

It didn’t make sense to Hiroshi. Niou had not joined tennis club at the beginning of the school year. He had not taken the chance to play with Atobe, Yanagi and the rest of the first group. He was, however, going to insane lengths to play tennis without anyone knowing.

Even as they walked through the school gate together, disguises dropped and secret identities stripped away, Hiroshi still had no idea who Niou was.

—

Hiroshi didn’t go to afternoon practice. Instead, he went up to the roof to see if Niou would repeat what he did that morning. When the freshmen came out on the court, one of them looked just like Hiroshi. That was all he needed to know.

Watching Niou practise as him hadn’t done him any good. What he needed right now was some distance to put things in perspective.

So Hiroshi went to golf club instead. The practice had already begun, but no one mentioned his lateness or the fact that he didn’t have any golf clubs with him. He borrowed a 3-wood off a fellow freshman and claimed a tee.

Swing practice helped him clear his mind. It was hard to think about tennis when he had to concentrate on the course of the long club. He felt out of practice, like he had on the first day of the tennis camp.

“Sorry, Hiroshi-kun, but I need my club back.”

He was pulled out of his thoughts abruptly. The practice had come to end without him even noticing.

“Oh, of course. Thank you very much,” he said, handing the 3-wood over. He would have liked to practise some more.

“So are you back now? Did you quit tennis?”

“Well, umm.” It didn’t seem like Niou needed him in the tennis club anymore, so he should be good to go back to golf. However, he couldn’t tell people he’d left the tennis club, as Niou would still be attending it as him. “I haven’t quite decided yet. I might do both for a while.”

“Oh, okay.”

He knew it couldn’t last. Sooner or later one of them would mess up. One thing that he’d learnt from his mystery books was that secrets would always get out, one way or another, and then they would both be in a lot of trouble. If Niou actually went so far as to take part in a tournament as him, they would surely both be banned from tennis.

He wasn’t feeling any better than before he came to golf practice, so he decided to go back to tennis courts and numb his mind with racket swings instead. He made sure to check for Niou before he entered the court, but the freshmen were already gone with only the regulars finishing their session on a nearby court.

Hiroshi decided that if Niou turned up wanting to do extra practice, he could do it as someone else.

He began with simple racket swings. Forehands and backhands, some lateral steps in between, and then back to swings. He was just starting to break sweat when he was interrupted.

“Still training, Yagyuu-kun? How have you liked tennis club so far?”

“Yanagi-kun,” Hiroshi nodded his greeting, lowering his racket. “It’s been…”

He didn’t know how to finish. Yanagi picked up his hesitation, entering the court so they could speak face-to-face.

“Is there something wrong?”

“Not exactly, it’s just… Actually, I’ve been wondering about something that happened last year at the camp. Could you tell me about it?”

Niou had mentioned that last year had sucked for him, so he had definitely been there. So had Yanagi, Sanada and Yukimura.

“Last year’s camp?” Yanagi considered it for a moment. “It was mostly fun. I went with my doubles partner of that time. We don’t play together anymore, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the camp.”

It wasn’t what Hiroshi had meant, but he remembered that Niou had mentioned it once.

“I heard somebody say that you betrayed him. Not that it’s any of my business, of course.”

“Who said that?”

“Niou-kun. He went to the camp with you, didn’t he?”

Yanagi was quiet for a long while.

“Niou-kun from last year’s camp? I didn’t realise that you knew him. It’s truly a small world. Doesn’t he live in Shikoku? That’s quite far, isn’t it? I haven’t heard of him since the camp. I don’t even know if he plays anymore. He wasn’t in this year’s nationals.“

There was a lot that Yanagi didn’t know. It surprised Hiroshi that he didn’t even know that Niou went to Rikkai now. Had he been hiding all year?

He was just about to enlighten Yanagi about Niou’s whereabouts when they were interrupted by Sanada.

“We chose gyuudon. Are you still coming?”

“Yes, just a minute. We were just talking about Masaharu.” It must have been Niou’s first name.

“Why?” Sanada crossed his arms, his expression hardening.

“Well, it appears that Yagyuu-kun here knows him. I was just asking him how they came to acquaintance.”

“He actually helped me out with my tennis,” Hiroshi decided to say after a brief consideration. It was true, if not the whole truth. “I haven’t known him for very long. You might even know him better than I, having gone to camp together.”

“Is he still mad at Seiichi?” Sanada asked.

“He hasn’t outright said so to me, but…” It was obvious that Niou was mad at someone. It might as well have been Yukimura. 

“Who is mad at me?“ a soft voice asked. Sanada stepped aside to reveal that Yukimura had arrived. “And are we going to eat or not?”

“Niou,” Sanada replied.

“So he has turned up again,” Yukimura said lightly.

“Yes. Who would have guessed?” said Yanagi.

Yukimura shrugged. “I always thought he would. He’s the type who wants revenge.”

“Why would he want revenge?” Hiroshi asked.

It might have been the wrong thing to say, because the three freshmen regulars fell silent.

“I guess we don’t talk about it a lot,” Yukimura finally said. “I’m not too proud of how it turned out. We had a bunch of good sixth years last year. Me and Genichirou, Renji and his old friend Sadaharu, Tezuka Kunimitsu from Seigaku, whom everyone expects to go pro by high school, and Tachibana Kippei, Chitose Senri and Niou Masaharu from the south. The coaches at the camp had no idea what to do with us, so they pretty much left us on our own. And I guess we’re not the easiest people… So everybody wanted to know who was the strongest.”

“That sounds a bit like this year’s first group,” Hiroshi pointed out.

Yanagi nodded in agreement. “For me it felt the same.”

“Renji and Sadaharu even made up a secret ranking table, and soon everybody was sneaking out at nights to play extra-curricular games. And they didn’t just stay on courts, either. I remember Renji and Sadaharu really exploiting the fact that they were best friends and most of us barely knew each other. Going against one of them was like playing with two opponents. Kippei and Senri were at each other’s throats for days until they decided to become friends instead. But in the end it was Niou who had the most underhanded tactics. I think it was because he was the worst of us. Better than other kids our age, but not better than us.”

“He shouldn’t have gone around telling everyone lies about others,” Sanada said.

“No, but I shouldn’t have got that mad either when I caught him.”

“What happened?” Hiroshi asked.

“I called him out one night to play a game with me. We went to the furthest court and started playing, and then I told him I knew what he’d done. I had decided that he had to pay for it. So I went after him with all I had, and he couldn’t do anything but stand there…”

“You would need to see Seiichi play with his full power to understand it,” Yanagi added.

“He only got what he deserved,” Sanada said. “In the end he managed to partly break out of the yips, just enough to throw down his racket and run out of the court. He just forgot about the steps.”

“Or maybe he didn’t see them,” Yanagi said. “Seiichi can really mess up your concentration. He fell down and broke his left arm in two places and fractured his collarbone. I had to run back to the dorms to call an ambulance… For a while we even thought he was dead. We were all very lucky that he only needed a cast and some painkillers. He was back at the camp the next day, but obviously he couldn’t play anymore.”

“The camp counselors needed someone to blame, so they kicked me off the camp,” Yukimura continued. “My parents had to come and take me home in the middle of the night. I don’t think they would have let me come this year even if I had wanted to. I guess Niou-kun didn’t want to go either.”

It sounded like Yukimura had, in fact, been largely to blame for Niou’s injury, but Hiroshi decided not to point it out. There seemed to be a lot of bad blood left between Yukimura, Sanada and Niou. So that was what Niou had meant by not everybody being able to join the tennis club.

It also turned out that Senri and Kippei’s ghost story had been true after all, if somewhat exaggerated. Someone had fallen down the hill and returned a year later to look for revenge.

“I see,” was all he said.

“It was over a year ago,” Sanada said. “There’s no need to talk about it anymore.”

“Unless he’s really out for revenge,” Yukimura added. “Should I start checking under my bed before I go to sleep?“

“I can’t really say for sure,” Hiroshi replied, “but I think that at this point he just wants to play again. He actually goes to Rikkai now.”

That managed to surprise all three.

“Really?” Yanagi said. “One would think that we would have noticed it.”

“He’s in 1-B with Marui-kun.”

“I wonder why he didn’t come to the club,” Yukimura said.

“He probably thinks that you don’t want him to join.”

“We don’t,” Sanada said. “It was his fault. We don’t need a guy like that.”

“But we don’t get to decide who joins the club,” Yanagi pointed out. “All you need to do is fill the form and show up.”

“I guess I could live with it,” Yukimura decided. “It’s not like he’s any worse than some of the senpai we have. It sounds like you’d like to bring him in, Yagyuu-kun.”

It felt like he was looking straight through Hiroshi. All he could do was nod.

“You don’t have any idea what you’re getting into.” Yukimura shook his head. “He really sucks at playing by rules.”

“I have noticed that.” It might be Yukimura who had no idea what Niou was capable of.

“Tell him to come by on Friday.”

—

The third doubles game Hiroshi ever played took place on Friday afternoon. He had barely played any proper games during his short time in the tennis club, so being taken aside by Yukimura at the start of practice and hearing that he had arranged a game with some second years was a real surprise.

He was even more surprised by the fact that Niou had showed up at all. He had been very opposed to the idea at first, continuing to go to practice as Hiroshi. Hiroshi still didn’t know what had changed his mind, but he suspected Niou might have actually spoken with Yukimura about this match at practice, disguised as him.

Now Niou stood on the court in front of him. He was wearing a school-issued track suit, not anything inspired by Hiroshi’s wardrobe nor the regular jersey Hiroshi knew he had, and he was visibly uncomfortable with all the people staring at him.

Yukimura, Sanada and Yanagi might have been the only people to know who he was, but all the club members wanted to see what this weird match between two senpai, a freshman who’d joined the club in the middle of the school year and some guy who was not a member at all, was about.

It was enough to make even Hiroshi nervous. There was so much to prove: not only would his own skills be assessed, but whatever Niou would do in this game would surely affect Hiroshi’s reputation as well.

His first serve wasn’t as good as it could have been, and Niou shot him an annoyed look before dashing for the ball. He hit a solid backhand with his left hand, sending the ball between the senpai and earning them their first points.

Apparently, Niou was left-handed, too, but Hiroshi didn’t have time to dwell on this new discovery. He was still trying to figure out how not to make a fool of himself when playing doubles. Niou was not giving him a lot of help with that, staying at the net and not even looking at Hiroshi. His strategy seemed to be to volley back as many balls as he could, rarely letting them get past him for Hiroshi to hit.

It actually made his game somewhat easier. All he had to do was determine whether the ball would be within Niou’s reach, and if not, he would move to cover the other side of the court. He even got the chance to hit a few of his fast drive volleys.

When it was Niou’s turn to serve, he just tried to play the forecourt as well as he could and let Niou do clean-up in the back. It wasn’t perfect strategy, but it worked well enough for them to scrape a 6-4 win.

“Well played,” Hiroshi congratulated Niou, who just shrugged. “Perhaps it wasn’t to your usual standard, but we did win.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Niou said, plucking the strings of his racket, his attention on the freshmen regulars on the other side of the fence.

Hiroshi had expected at least a thank you. After all, he was trying to settled a year-long disagreement, and he had just given Niou a chance to return to the sport he loved and exceeded his own limits to help him win this important game, not to even mention allowing Niou to attend practice as him earlier this week.

“Well, have a good evening, then,” he said and picked up his tennis bag, ready to leave the court.

A hand on his elbow stopped him.

“Where are you going? You can’t leave me alone with them.”

Golf club, Hiroshi was going to say. He was going back to golf club, where he didn’t need to attend practice and his friends had all but forgotten him.

It suddenly felt like a terrible idea.

He looked at the blond boy still hanging on his arm. On the other side of the fence Yukimura was gesturing for them to come to him, probably to pass his judgement on them.

Maybe he should stick around the tennis club for just a little bit longer. Who knew what other mysteries would arise.


End file.
